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Windows XP printer sharing

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6 replies

by jblack

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I have been sharing a printer on Windows XP for some time. I had a virus on my system and downloaded spyware program to clean the viruses. Since that time, I have not been able to share my printer. When I go to printer proporties and select share, I get the following error:

"Printer settings could not be saved. Operation could not be completed".

Did my spyware program remove a critical file?

6 replies

by hkuruba

Try Reinstall the printer and share properties. If you dont know how to do it, better restore your system to the point before you cleaned with spyware.

by rewrite

Do a quick check of your services and make sure that the Server service is set to startup automatically and is running. The virus could have turned it off. I have never heard of any spyware removal of doing this but you never know.

Otherwise try an uninstall and reinstall of the printer as suggested in answer 1.

Cheers.

RW

by itworkshahaha

The above guy's answer worked, although he was quite vague for newbies like myself. Here's what I did:

Click Start, then Run, then type in "services.msc" (without the quotes) and hit Enter. You'll then see the list of aaallll the local services your computer runs. Scroll down to the one called "Server" and, at least for me, the "Status" column was blank and the "Startup type" column said "Manual". If this is the case for you too, simply right-click on "Server" and click "Properties" from the drop-down box. Then change "Startup type" to "Automatic", click "Start" under "Service status" then click OKAY! Good to go.

Now go way back to your printer's share settings and try sharing again. It worked for me. Take care.

EDIT: Since my computer is out of warrenty, Dell wanted to charge me $129.99 to fix this 3-minute problem.

by kylewarner7

I had the same problems, but I also need to right-click Server and click on "Start" as well.

by glyall

to go start > run enter services.msc then select printer spooler
stop the service then restart the service

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