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Win9x PCs lose printer folder contents.

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11 replies

by eric.brown

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Win9x clients have local and network printers installed and visible in the Printers folder. Perodically, the user can't print and an examination of the Printers folder shows it is empty; not even the local printer is there! A reboot restores the contents and the ability to print. Affecting several PCs but not all of them on the network. (Network is small LAN, no subnets).

11 replies

by highlander718

The same thing happens to me, very rarely though.
I also loose some of my desktop icons, and start menu programs. The problem is that the profile is not picked up properly when the user signs in.
Try to copy the profile to your local drive (Win95\profiles\"user-id") instead of a network drive.

by lizzy

This is a common problem in Microsoft products.

Try this:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/rrzk/systeme/sun/infos/SUN-MANAGERS/1994/August-html/msg00097.html

See this also:

http://www.novellfans.com/bbs/folder/netwarel/msg/m3B.htm

(that one saysit's Novell network, but MS workstations)

Perhaps this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q115548

Then there's this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q240826

Also, check to see if their networkdrives are being lost and if so, research that problem as lost printing is only part of the problem.
HTH.

by /dev/null

This has happened to me a couple times on various machines.

What happened in my case was that the Win9x spooler process died: either by another application crashing it, or because of some poorly written / bad printer drivers. GPF or IPF in spool32.dll.

If this is your case, update the printer drivers. I think I remember hearing something about the spool32.dll that might be outdated/old version installed...

This is just one way they can lose the contents of the 'printers' folder.

by pinoy_teknik

Can your browse the file of the PC which the Printer is connected. If you can you don't have a network problem.

Try to remove the Printer in your Printer Folder and Add New Printer. To reinstall the printer driver. Coz maybe the Printer Server are changed some of the configuration and your going the get it.
Here is the step to add a network printer..
http://www.liberty.edu/InformationServices/CustomerService/ResNet/index.cfm?PID=2356

(remove spaces, (%20))

I think you need a Static Network Address and appropriate subnet mask (255.255.255.0) to isolate some bootleneck...

Hope this so...

Pinoy_Teknik

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