Solution to Printers "Disappear" / Print Spooler Service Down

[Paul Baker [MVP, Windows - SDK]]

A common question in this newsgroup is what to do if the Print Spooler
services goes down. Usually the symptom people notice is that no printers
show in the Printers folder. They "disappear". The temporary solution is to
restart the Print Spooler service.

This is almost always caused by unreliable third party components. There are
several kinds of third party components that can be "plugged in" to the
print spooler to provide additional functionality (drivers, port or language
monitors, print processors, print providers, etc.). You should avoid
installing them in the first place by sticking to components that are
included with the Windows installation whenever possible. In some cases, the
additional functionality of the third partty components is not very useful
and it may be a good idea to remove them to gain stability!

The Registry Editor can be used to determine which third party components
are installed and remove them.

KB article 260142 explains how to remove third party port or language
monitors. Look under "Error Messages Typically Caused by Local Port Monitor
Problems".
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;260142

Jason Hall of Microsoft also mentions the Cleanspl utility from the Windows
Server 2003 Resource Kit, which requires Windows 2000/XP/2003. He does not
mention how it works.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en

Is there a Microsoft KB article on this subject? There should be!

Paul

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

Paul: perhaps you know this already, but if you install the Resource Kit
Tools, the Tools Help has some information about cleanspl, but perhaps not
the details you are after. I'm not aware of any KB article about it.

 

[Paul Baker [MVP, Windows - SDK]]

I didn't know that actually. I would have liked to have done more research,
but I didn't have the time. That's why someone needs to write a KB article,
so we noone has to spend the time gathering this sort of information. It
seems to be a very common occurence that peoples printers "disappear". I
posted to the MVP KB newsgroup.

Paul

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

You're right about the frequent postings about printers disappearing.
That's why I created the page at
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm, which has much of
the same information that KB article 260142 has. See also
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324757. Essentially
the same information is also in the MVP Printing FAQ at
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/PrintingFAQ.HTM.

Cari has some info about this problem on her web site at
http://www.coribright.com/Windows/ (articles Two and Nine).

None of these mention the cleanspool utility. I'll add some info about it
on my web site. Thanks for bringing it to light, although, as you say, more
details would be nice.

--
Bruce Sanderson MVP Printing

It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.

 

[Paul Baker [MVP, Windows - SDK]]

Thanks for the great information

You're right about the frequent postings about printers disappearing.
That's why I created the page at
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm, which has much of
the same information that KB article 260142 has. See also
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324757. Essentially
the same information is also in the MVP Printing FAQ at
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/PrintingFAQ.HTM.

Cari has some info about this problem on her web site at
http://www.coribright.com/Windows/ (articles Two and Nine).

None of these mention the cleanspool utility. I'll add some info about it
on my web site. Thanks for bringing it to light, although, as you say, more
details would be nice.