There will be print event 50 on one of your DCs when the DC searches for the
print server and calls open printer to make sure the share is still valid
and deletes when no longer there. I have seen the DC delete printers from
servers when there is an authentication issue between the machines or a DNS
registration pointing to the wrong machine.
PrintQueue LDAP://CN=ALAN-SERVER-Xerox Phaser
7700DX,CN=ALAN-SERVER,CN=Computers,DC=ipptest,DC=nttest,DC=microsoft,DC=com
was deleted.
Verify that spooler informational notifications are enabled on the DCs in
Printers Folder, File, Server Properties, Advanced.
To fix this without touching the printer UI settings, get the Server
resource kit.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&DisplayLang=en
Setprinter.exe is your friend. This command will publish all the printers
on \\servername.
setprinter \\servername 7 dwAction="publish"
The printer pruning is configurable in the GPO of the DCs. Computer
Configuration, Administrative Templates, Printers
ALLOW PRUNING OF PUBLISHED PRINTERS
Determines whether the domain controller can prune (delete from Active
Directory) the printers published by this computer.
By default, the pruning service on the domain controller prunes printer
objects from Active Directory if the computer that published them does not
respond to contact requests. When the computer that published the printers
restarts, it republishes any deleted printer objects.
If you enable this setting or do not configure it, the domain controller
prunes this computer's printers when the computer does not respond.
If you disable this setting, the domain controller does not prune this
computer's printers. This setting is designed to prevent printers from being
pruned when the computer is temporarily disconnected from the network.
DIRECTORY PRUNING INTERVAL
Specifies how often the pruning service on a domain controller contacts
computers to verify that their printers are operational.
The pruning service periodically contacts computers that have published
printers. If a computer does not respond to the contact message (optionally,
after repeated attempts), the pruning service "prunes" (deletes from Active
Directory) printer objects the computer has published.
By default, the pruning service contacts computers every eight hours and
allows two repeated contact attempts before deleting printers from Active
Directory.
If you enable this setting, you can change the interval between contact
attempts.
If you do not configure or disable this setting the default values will be
used.
Note: This setting is used only on domain controllers.
--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Double B said:
I have 5 win2k3 servers and 1 win2k server. My win 2k server is the global
catalog and main dns server. A month ago i had all of my printers disappear
from the directory. All of the printers were still working but not available
in the directory, they were however available by browsing to the servers in
my domain and selecting the shared printer. I updated and rebooted all of my
servers and it fixed it. Now it is just the 2k server that looses its
printers in the directory. Also if i want to have the reappear temporarly i
can go in and uncheck the "make availible in the directory box" apply it
then go back in and check it the printer will reappear for a while then
disappear.
Does anyone have an answer.
