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  • A printer (LaserJet P1006) connected to a Windows XP workstation is shared to the network.

  • The user is connected to the printer from a Server 2008 terminal services session. (Local printer redirection via RDP is not used, because the printer name is not stable -- a requirement for some software.)

  • This is a small network with thin clients and workstations used primarily as thin clients. There is no domain controller.

  • The primary printer for this site does not exhibit these performance issues. It supports TCP/IP directly.

When a job is sent to this printer, two jobs appear in the queue in short order. One of these jobs never has a size associated with it. Sometimes the "empty" job appears first and sometimes it appears second. Processing this null job appears to take approximately 30 seconds and will block the queue for that time. Deleting the job does not appear to speed the process up in any way.

James Emerton
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  • Does the second job show up when you print directly from the XP machine it is hooked up to? – Supercereal Nov 12 '10 at 14:21
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    I have since replaced the (cheap) printer with a better model. (I don't have the model number on hand.) Printing speed is much more acceptable. – James Emerton Nov 12 '10 at 23:26

1 Answers1

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This likely has to do with the quality of the printer. The P1006 is a fairly dumb printer and gets your PC to do all of the work. I try to avoid the super low end printers like the P1006 in TS situations, for everyday printing they're fine but they tend to be a killer on support calls in remote situations. Generally I've found that if you spend about $250+ on the printer it works out well, it seems like thats the price point to get the basic intelligence built into the printer.

ErnieTheGeek
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