Troubleshoot Network Printing

This page deals with troubleshooting network printing problems. You can find other network troubleshooting resources here:

Advanced troubleshooting for network printing problems in Windows XP

This article describes how to troubleshoot difficulties that may occur when you try to print to a network printer in Windows XP. This article is intended for advanced computer users.

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	You receive an error message when you try to open the Properties dialog box for a shared printer on a Windows Server 2003-based computer On a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer, you to try to open the Printer Properties dialog box for a shared printer. This shared printer is connected to a Windows Server 2003-based domain controller. When you try to open this dialog box, you receive the following error message: Function address address caused a protection fault. Some or all property page(s) may not be displayed. Note: This issue affects Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
	You Do Not Receive Print Notification When You Print to a Network Printer in a Domain When you print from a Windows XP-based client computer to a network printer in a domain, you do not receive a print notification message.
	How to print to a network printer from an MS-DOS-based program in Windows XP This article describes how to print to a network printer from an MS-DOS-based program in Microsoft Windows XP.
	Error message appears after printing to a network printer When you attempt to print a document, you may receive an error message. The following list indicates the program in use and the corresponding error message that you may receive: Notepad: The RPC server is unavailable. WordPad: Could not start print job Microsoft Paint: Could not start print job Microsoft FrontPage 2000: Could not start print Job Microsoft Word 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1): Windows cannot print due to a problem with the current printer setup. Try one or more of the following: Check the printer by printing a test page from Windows. Make sure the printer is turned on and online. Reinstall the printer driver. Microsoft Power Point 2000: Windows cannot print due to a problem with the current printer setup. Try one or more of the following: Check the printer by printing a test page from Windows. Make sure the printer is turned on and online. Reinstall the printer driver. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or Microsoft Outlook Express, you do not receive an error message, but the document is not printed.

	"Access Denied" Error Message When You Print to a Network Printer or View the Printer Properties When you try to print to a network printer that requires trusted credentials, or when you try to view the properties of the network printer, the following error message may appear: Access Denied. Also, you may not be able to save a password for the network printer after you connect to the printer.
	The Point and Print Restrictions Policy Setting Is Not Applied When You Use Windows XP When you use the Point and Print feature to print to a network printer, you can connect to shared printers on servers that are not specified in the Point and Print Restrictions policy setting of your local computer policy.
	Cannot Use Network Printer If Your Password Is Not Saved If you do not have direct access to a printer, but you do have a user account and password that does have access, you may be unable to print to the same network printer the next time you log on to the computer, and you may receive one of the following error messages: Access is denied. The RPC server is unavailable. Could not start print job If you check the status of the network printer in the Printers folder, it may appear as: Access denied, unable to connect
	Print notification messages do not appear when you print to a network printer After you install Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), you may experience the following issue when you print to a shared printer on your network: Print status notification messages do not appear. The printer icon does not appear on the Windows taskbar. Note: This issue occurs even though print notification messages are not turned off in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. For information about how to know if print notification messages are turned off, see the More Information section.
	Cannot Print from the Network to a Windows XP Print Server You may not be able to print to a Windows XP-based print server on the network. This problem can occur in the following situation: A Windows XP-based computer is used as a network print server. The computer is in a workgroup. The printer is a serial-port printer.
	How to troubleshoot problems that you may experience when you try to print to a local printer by using Office programs in Windows XP This article does not provide in-depth information about how to troubleshoot printing problems over a network, but it does provide many important basic troubleshooting steps that you can use to help diagnose your printing problems. The troubleshooting steps that are listed in this article may also help you verify that your network printing problem is not being caused by a local problem.
	Printing Preference Options Are Not Available When You Use Internet Printing Protocol When you view the properties of a printer that is configured to use Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and then you click Printing Preferences, some of the printing preferences options do not appear. The options do appear when you configure the printer connection to use a standard remote procedure call (RPC).
	Printer tray assignments on a print server may not transfer to the client computer when you install a network printer in Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 If you install a network printer on a Microsoft Windows XP-based or Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based client computer from a Windows XP-based or Windows Server 2003-based print server, the tray assignments on the printer may not transfer to the client computer. When you view the tray assignments on the client computer, the tray appears as not available.
	Problems Upgrading a User-Mode Print Driver By Using Point and Print If a client uses Point and Print to connect to a networked printer, and the printer driver on the server is changed, the client does not properly receive the updated registry information. In other words, if the printer driver for a shared printer is changed on the server, the driver is not upgraded on the clients.
	Use Printer Offline Is Not Available for Network Printers When you try to use the "Use Printer Offline" feature, the or one [sic] that is similar to it: There was an error found when printing the document "Print.txt" to LPT1 Access is Denied. Do you want to retry or cancel the job? The "Use Printer Offline" feature is only available for local printers, for example, printers that are directly connected to LPT1. This is typically apparent because this feature is missing from printers that are connected with a UNC connection. However, this feature appears to be available when you connect to a network printer by using the net use command or by capturing the printer with the Novell Client.
	Non-administrators cannot remap an LPT port to a network printer When a user who is not an administrator tries to use the net use command to remap an LPT port to a network printer (for example, net use lpt1: \\printer server\print share), and the LPT port is already assigned to the local parallel port, the LPT port is not remapped. A use who is not an administrator can still map a network printer to an LPT port that is not already assigned to a local parallel-port.
	Description of the Point and Print Restrictions policy setting in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP If you are using Windows XP, you can use the Point and Print functionality to print to shared printers that are hosted on computers that are running Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. If you use the Point and Print functionality to connect to a shared printer, the print driver for that shared printer is automatically downloaded to your workstation. This article describes how to use the Point and Print Restrictions policy setting.
	You receive a "Print monitor is unknown" error when you try to install a printer driver remotely or by using a script on a computer that is running Windows 2000 or Windows XP When you try to install a printer driver remotely or by using a script on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows XP, the installation does not succeed, and you receive an error that is similar to the following: Print monitor is unknown
	How to remotely administer a printer through a network share when you use Windows XP Service Pack 2 in a workgroup environment In a Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) workgroup environment, you can configure remote administrative access so that an administrator can manage a printer through a network share. You can configure the "Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts" local policy setting so that a remote administrator must log on to the network share by using local logon credentials instead of by using the Guest account.
	Printing performance problems on Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 When you open a document in a program, and then you click Print on the File menu of the program to print the document, you experience one or more of the following symptoms: You experience a long delay before the print dialog box appears. The delay may be longer if you use a third-party printing client such as the Novell iPrint client. You experience a long delay before the document starts to print. These symptoms occur if the following conditions are true: The computer is running Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Microsoft Windows Server 2003. A default network printer is installed, and the URL of the printer has more than 31 characters. You are printing to a printer that uses the Microsoft Internet Print Provider (IPP).
	Cannot Set Up a Default Network Printer for All Windows XP Users When you deploy Windows XP Professional in a domain or workgroup, you may not be able to specify a default network printer. Instead, each user may have to log on and install the printer separately.
	How To Disable Automatic Search for Network Printers and Folders in Windows XP This step-by-step article describes how to disable the automatic search function for network printers and folders in Microsoft Windows XP. By default, Windows XP monitors shared resources on the network to make it easier to connect to a shared resource. This feature, which is new in Windows XP, is implemented by periodically scanning the computers on the network. During the scan, Windows XP identifies any newly-shared resources, such as a printer that has just gone online as a shared printer, or a folder that has just been shared. When Windows XP finds a newly-shared resource, it adds an icon for the resource to My Network Places, and, if the new resource is a printer, also in your Printers and Faxes folder. This is a convenient way for you to keep up to date on the shared resources that are available on the network, and it does not add a great deal of overhead to your Windows XP computer's work load. However, the apparent convenience of this new feature may not be desirable if you cannot use the information that is gained from the automatic scan for network resources.
	A print request to a Novell NetWare printer share is unsuccessful on a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer On a Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)-based computer, you send a print request to a Novell NetWare printer share that is mapped to the printer port. After you do this, CPU usage may increase to 100 percent. Additionally, the print request is unsuccessful.
	No network printer notifications appear even though the "Show informational notifications for network printers" check box is selected in Windows XP No network printer notifications appear even though the Show informational notifications for network printers check box is selected.
	IPX/SPX Network Printer Is No Longer Listed in the Printers and Faxes Folder After Windows XP Upgrade This behaviour occurs because Client Services for NetWare (CSNW) is not included in Windows XP Home Edition.
	You receive an error message when you try to install a shared network printer on a Windows Server 2003-based or Windows XP SP1-based computer f you try to install a shared network printer, you experience symptoms if the following conditions are true: You have a shared network printer that is installed on a Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server-based print server. You try to install the shared network printer locally on a computer that is part of a Windows domain. You try to install the shared network printer locally on a computer that is running one of the following operating systems: Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) Windows Server 2003 In this scenario, you experience the following symptoms if you try to install a shared network printer: If you try to install the printer on a Windows XP SP1-based client by using the Add Printer Wizard or by using the printer share name from the \\PrintServerName\PrinterShareName location, you receive the following error message: A policy is in effect on your computer which prevents you from connecting to this print queue. Please contact your system administrator. If you use the Add Printer Wizard to try to install the printer on a Windows Server 2003-based client, you receive the following error message when you click Finish to complete the printer installation: Unable to Install Printer. The printer driver is not compatible with a policy enabled on your computer that blocks Windows NT 4.0 drivers. If you want to use this driver, contact your system administrator about disabling this policy.

	The complete name of a network printer cannot be displayed on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP You are using a network printer whose name contains a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows XP. The name of the network printer is in one of the following formats: print server name.different Domain Name System (DNS) domain name\shared printer name shared printer name on print server name.different DNS domain name In an application, you try to select the network printer from a list. However, a network printer name that contains an FQDN is so long that the complete name cannot be displayed in the list. Therefore, you cannot locate the network printer that you want. This behaviour occurs if the following conditions are true: The network printer is located in a domain. However, the print server that hosts the network printer is located in another domain. Or, the host names of the print server are configured in a disjoint namespace. Note In a disjoint namespace, the primary DNS suffix of the print server differs from the name of the domain that includes the print server. Users in a domain other than the domain that includes the print server have created network printers. These printers were created by using published printers in the Active Directory directory service.
	Add a Printer Wizard stops responding when you try to install a network printer When you try to install a network printer on your Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, the Add a Printer Wizard stops responding.
	You receive an error message when you try to open the Properties dialog box for a network printer on a Windows XP-based computer or on a Windows Server 2003-based computer On a client computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Microsoft Windows Server 2003, you to try to open the Printer Properties dialog box for a network printer that is connected to a Windows Server 2003-based domain controller. However, you receive the following error message: Function address address caused a protection fault. Some or all property page(s) may not be displayed.
	"Operation could not be completed" error message when you use the Add Printer Wizard When you create a printer (either a local printer or a remote network printer) by using the Add Printer Wizard, you may receive the following error message: Operation could not be completed. The print spooler service is not running.
	The Add Printer Wizard or the Printer dialog box stop responding on a Windows Server 2003-based, Windows XP-based, or Windows 2000-based computer You may experience one or more of the following printer issues on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP, or Microsoft Windows 2000: When you try to open the Print dialog box, it takes a long time to open. When you use the Add Printer Wizard to install a network printer that is hosted on a server that is running the SMB Service, the Add Printer Wizard may stop responding. The problem occurs after the driver files are copied. When you select a different network printer in the Printer Name box in the Add Printer Wizard, there may a delay before the change is applied. This problem may occur even though the conditions in the "Cause" section do not apply to the network printer that you select.
	The network traffic increases after you try to use a remote printer in Microsoft Windows XP After you try to use a remote Lexmark printer over a virtual private network (VPN) connection, network traffic may increase. The increased network traffic can severely decrease performance on slow network links.