Print spooler issues have always givin me a real hard time, and I have never really knew how to fix them. Until now. So for those who are having issues, you can give this a try….
Here was our Problem: A Print Server (W2K3 standard), the print spooler would crash about once every 5 min, sometimes 10 min… ect… there was no pattern of what was causing the issue. It would restart fine, then crash… Very Frustrating!!
So here was the cause/fix: What was causing it was, the Print Processors… MS says 3rd party print processors are a “no no” for the print server. This print server had about 70 printers, now sometimes the print processor would install\use the correct print processor, and sometimes it would install\use the 3rd party print processor… And sometimes the 3rd party wouldn’t crash the print spooler, and sometimes it wouldn’t crash the spooler… hm… Are we all following? not all 70 printers are used at the same time, and if a print job goes to a printer that uses the correct print processor the spooler will not crash… once a job goes to a bad print processor, that is what causes the crash… And that is why it appeared to be completely random. But we all know nothing is random.
The Fix is a Regedit: Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers . For each printer, check which print processor, if any are using a 3rd party Print Processor change it to “WinPrint” (case sensitive). Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Print Processors and delete all entries EXCEPT for “WinPrint”
Restart your spooler and you should be good to go (if its the same problem as I had this fix will work)… Also remember to always back up the “registry hive” before you start editing it. Good Luck, and hopefully this helps out someone.