Printers and Faxes not appearing - print spooler service error

[Guest]

I look after an ethernet N/W with a Windows 2003 Server and about 20 XP Pro
client PC's. Some PC's are having an intermittent problem. Applications hang
due to something going wrong with the print spooler service. If you click
Start > Printers and Faxes nothing happens. Looking into it - if you stop the
Print spooler service you get the message: "Could not stop the print spooler
service on local computer" - "Error 1053: The service did not respond to the
start or control request in a timely fashion." The service will restart OK
and "Printers and Faxes" then appears. The problem may re-appear after 10
minutes or be fine for another 10 days. There are 2 laser printers running
off 2 tcp/ip print servers on the n/w. Originally I had thought that the
problem was related to one of the printers, the Ricoh 1232 but some recent
tests dont support that theory. I have tried several things and thought I had
fixed this issue several times as the whole n/w will be fine for a week but
then several pc's all seem to go wrong again around the same time.
Has anyone scene this before or suggest a cause or resolution.
Many thanks, Paul.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

One (or more) of the PCs have corrupted printer drivers.

 

[Guest]

The reason I asked about re-installing is I have already tried re-installing
the driver for the Ricoh (the suspected problem printer).

Cheers,

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

On every single PC? The corrupted drivers can be on the PC with the problem
and even on the Server.

 

[Guest]

Sorry I posted 2 replys and first one got replaced. I have tried
re-installing (not removing old one first) the Ricoh driver on several test
pc's but doesn't make a difference. Is re-installing good enough? Also is
there any way - as users have multiple printers - to know which driver needs
replacing or is it guarenteed to be the default printers one as applications
can hang as soon as you click the print toolbar button in outlook or word
(prints direct to the default printer)? Thankyou.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

See:
http://www.coribright.com/windows/Article_One.htm
and
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm