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Printer spooler annoyance

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4 replies

by wireeater

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Hi everyone,

I hope someone has experienced this problem before and has found a solution.

The problem is (or at least what I have concluded trouble shooting yhe issue) the printer spooler. Various users throughout the office, including myself have experienced this annoyance.

When we send a print job to our printer via //servername/printer the printer spooler will continuously run in the background, flashing for a brief second and go away. It causes your current window to lose focus. As if you were typing in word or an email and it flashes then you have to re click back on the document in order to type again.

Disabling and re enabling the printer spooler will eliminate the problem until you send to the printer again.

However, adding the printer by IP \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\printer seems to eliminate this problem. Although I am not 100% sure.

What is going on? Why should it matter if its directed to the IP or the name of the sever. And if you have experienced or heard of this problem and have a resolution other than the one I use, what is it?

Thanks in advanced.

Server is running Windows 20003 SBS 64bit,
Clients are running Windows XP Pro.

Printers are HP 9040MFP's

4 replies

by bfilmfan

That is an issue where printer companies like to hijack the default print processor and stick in their own junk.

To resolve:

1. Right-click each printer and do a Properties.

2. On the Advanced tab, see what the print-processor is set to be. HP's like to hi-jack the default processor and plug in their own junk (HPZPP*.exe) (So do Lexmarks, Canon, etc).

If it's anything other than WinPrint, set it WinPrint and apply the changes. Do this for either your busiest printer(s) or all
printers.

by nnorsh

If you have a basic printer this workaround is good. However, on more complex printers, some features such as duplexing, collating, changing paper size, etc may not be available. You just have to test after installing WinPrint.

by wireeater

Thanks, I just remoted into the server and it is indeed using HP services. Changing this to the Winprint will not effect the printer capabilities will it?

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