Print Dialog Crashes Applications

[George Neuner]

Hi all,

I've suddenly got a weird problem with a company supplied laptop
(XPpro SP3, 32-bit) for which I have "power user" but not admin
permissions. IT has been less than helpful (as usual) so I'm hoping
there is something I can do myself.

I have a large number of network printers available - over 40 - but
for the last couple of weeks I have experienced application crashes
whenever I try to select a printer from the print dialog. It doesn't
matter which printer I try to select - any choice from the list causes
a crash. I can print from or cancel the dialog as long as I don't
touch the printer list - just using the default printer works fine. I
can open the printer list in the control panel and change the default
printer, so I have a painful workaround at least.

The crash happens regardless of application so I figure it is a
systemic problem. The error messages vary and I've seen no
consistency - the crashes appear to happen in a number of DLLs at
varying addresses. I've submitted a number of crash dumps to
Microsoft, but there have been no solution suggestions yet and a
search of the knowledge base turned up nothing useful.

IT removed and then restored all the printers, and now I can change
printers when on the office internal network, but I still experience
crashes whenever I work remotely by VPN - which is quite often. Since
the crashes in the office have been fixed (at least temporarily), IT
has given up - they have never been very helpful with VPN problems.

So far I haven't found anyone with a similar complaint. But I'd like
to fix the problem. Has anyone seen this before? If so, how was it
fixed?

Thanks,
George

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Hi all,

I've suddenly got a weird problem with a company supplied laptop
(XPpro SP3, 32-bit) for which I have "power user" but not admin
permissions. IT has been less than helpful (as usual) so I'm hoping
there is something I can do myself.

I have a large number of network printers available - over 40 - but
for the last couple of weeks I have experienced application crashes
whenever I try to select a printer from the print dialog. It
doesn't matter which printer I try to select - any choice from the
list causes a crash. I can print from or cancel the dialog as long
as I don't touch the printer list - just using the default printer
works fine. I can open the printer list in the control panel and
change the default printer, so I have a painful workaround at least.

The crash happens regardless of application so I figure it is a
systemic problem. The error messages vary and I've seen no
consistency - the crashes appear to happen in a number of DLLs at
varying addresses. I've submitted a number of crash dumps to
Microsoft, but there have been no solution suggestions yet and a
search of the knowledge base turned up nothing useful.

IT removed and then restored all the printers, and now I can change
printers when on the office internal network, but I still experience
crashes whenever I work remotely by VPN - which is quite often.
Since the crashes in the office have been fixed (at least
temporarily), IT has given up - they have never been very helpful
with VPN problems.

So far I haven't found anyone with a similar complaint. But I'd
like to fix the problem. Has anyone seen this before? If so, how
was it fixed?

Do you need 40 printers?

If not - delete all you don't need and leave only the ones you do need and
make a list of them in case IT wants it.

Or is this a domain laptop and they get remapped when you log into the
domain?

 

[George Neuner]

Do you need 40 printers?
If not - delete all you don't need and leave only the ones you do need and
make a list of them in case IT wants it.

Well, I mostly use a few that are near my office, but the company's
offices extend over 14 floors of the building and, if I'm in a meeting
somewhere I occasionally do need to be able to print to a nearby one.

I can delete printers, but they'll reappear shortly after I login to
the company network. I do have to be on site for that though ... it
doesn't happen if I login remotely through VPN.

Or is this a domain laptop and they get remapped when you log into the
domain?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "remapped", but when I visit
company offices in another city, I can still access my normal file
servers via their network (though the Internet I assume), but the list
of printers changes to show local ones.

Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP

George