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Where have all my printers gone?

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5 replies

by athomas

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A networked Win XP computer worked fine on Friday. On Monday morning the guy couldn't print. He looked in Start / Printers & Faxes to find he apparently didn't have any Printers at all!

The problem was traced to the Print Spooler (Control Panel / Computer Management / Services).

Although the Startup Type was correctly set to Automatic the spooler had not started. Starting it manually (a click at the top left corner of the pane) restored all printing capability, the Printers & Faxes window was once again showing all the printers and he could print on all of them. So far so good!

Shut down and re-start. Oops! No Printers! Looking in Services again showed that although the Startup Type remained correctly set to Automatic the spooler had, again, failed to start and this situation remains.

Weird! Any ideas on this one? Thanks in advance.

5 replies

by halo4

Hmmm,
You may have checked this already:
Goto Start, Run and type in msconfig. Once that pops up click on the services tab and check to see if the print spooler box is checked, also check to make sure that the "Normal Start Up" radio button is checked under the general tab.

Halo

by athomas

Helpful, because I hadn't tried that but unfortunately didn't cure the fault. Thanks anyway.

by oneonlysupermouse

Sounds like a driver conflict. What make and model of a printer are you using? Also, try uninstalling the manufacurers utilities, and just run with the windows drivers.

by athomas

The problem, which remains, is that about 6 printers dissapear after rebooting and all re-appear when the spooler is started manually

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