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Environment:

  • Windows 2008 R2 Print Server (Virtual)
  • 178 Printers installed. All using TCP/IP
  • Many different printer brands
  • Most all employees print through this print server

Problems: The spooler service has recently started crashing. This is bad, but I know some of the general troubleshooting needed. I am slowly trying to find the bad print driver. Already purged all pending print jobs to make sure it wasn't a corrupt job. (that happened to me once before).

My main concern that I would like help with is this: when the print server spooler service (or the entire server) is not responding, many of my employee PCs freeze/hang, but some do not. Is there a group policy or registry change I can make that will make the client OS on each PC more tolerant/resistant to print server problems??

I am guessing there might be a way, since some PCs already seem to work while the server is down.

I am moving my critical life and death PCs to a different print server.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Paul
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  • `I am slowly trying to find the bad print driver` - Why do you assume it's a printer driver? Have you checked the event logs on the print server? `Is there a group policy or registry change I can make that will make the client OS on each PC more tolerant/resistant to print server problems?` I'm not sure why people have the notion that Group Policy is some kind of magic wand that can cure every problem. I'm not sure why you think there would be a Group Policy setting to prevent a workstation from freezing because of a borked print job/print server. – joeqwerty Mar 06 '15 at 16:16
  • I assume it is a printer driver causing my spooler issues based on past experience with bad printer drivers. I was hoping for a group policy (or registry change) that would control how often a client PC connects to a printer server or something like that. Group policy is not a magic wand, but it has a lot more options than most people realize. I only came to the conclusion of a possible setting to help based on the fact that not 100% of PCs were effected, so something must be different on some PCs. Thanks for the response. – Paul Mar 06 '15 at 20:17

1 Answers1

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Here is how I solved this:

  • Moved all critical printers to a different print server
  • Isolated as many drivers as possible (shared or isolated mode)
  • Wrote a custom printer driver information tool and searched for older drivers that do not support isolation. I updated them when possible.

most of the issues are gone or happen very rarely now.

Paul
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