Printer dialog takes up to 25 seconds to appear on user workstations

[Phil]

We have W2k3 servers, and placed shared printers on one of them. A machine
way underutilized.

Users printer to the shared printers on this machine.

Applications showing the printer select dialog box wait up to 25 seconds to
come up! Word takes about 10 seconds extra to open a document that has been
printed, I assume because it is interogating the printer last printed to.

We have a pretty std network, 5 W2K3 servers, cisco switch, sonicwall
firewall router, 25 user workstations, so it isn't like there
is an overload of eqpt.

We do have sonicwall vpn client installed on a few users home machines. On
mine at home, I see messages about work-related master browser elections.

Could the vpn machine at my home be becoming the master browser for the
network? That could explain the slowdown

Any other suggestions would be appreciated

phil

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

If you suspect the browser service on your home computer is causing a
problem:

1. set
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList
to No
2. stop the Computer Browser service and set its Startup type to Disabled

You may find the browstat and nbtstat commands useful. nbtstat is installed
with Windows; browstat is in the Support Tools (on the Windows XP or 2003
CD).

See also
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...00/server/reskit/en-us/cnet/cnfi_brs_vcer.asp