Printers disappearing???

[j17sparky]

In one of our computer rooms recentoly the printers seem to just vanish. The teachers machine was fine on friday, came in this morning and they are gone???? This is happening to differant machines with no pattern.

The last thing i installed was a RIS of CutePDF printer but that was ages ago, just the last 2 weeks the printers just vanish. They are set as local printers pointing to the print server. When i go to reinstall them the ports are still there. Any ideas?


(And yes, pish off, ill get round to doing a script when i can be bothered! lol)

[Geoff]

Is the print spooler crashing perhaps? It's usually due to a dodgy driver if it is.

[j17sparky]

Hmm ill have a look but i wouldnt have thought so as they are differant models of printers (just found out its happening in a couple of rooms).

[TechMonkey]

Sorry, can't remember where it is but we had problems with printer pruning set to on in the AD. This apparently checks printer connections and chucks them if they aren't valid. This is of course a probelm if there are local printers and the stations are off when the check happens. I'll try and dig up where the setting is.

EDIT:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234270/EN-US/ has a whole raft of printer settings for GPOs, with the forth and fifth down being about pruning.

HTH

[j17sparky]

Im just trawling through the event logs on one of the print servers and im getting a fair few of these

Error - TermServDevices - **Driver Microsoft XPS Document Writer** required for printer **Microsoft XPS Document Writer** is unknown. Contact the administrator to install the driver before you log in again. Computer - AP-02

**CutePDF and Macromedia Flashpaper are also triggering the same event (obviously just differant names in there)


Now thats all understandable, its looking for drivers which arnt there, but that would be if it had any reason to want these drivers. I havnt installed MS office, Flashpaper or CutePDF on the print server (check and theres no GPOs trying to either).

So that points to the clients being the problem, but why in the event log does it say the computer is itself (the print server, ap-02) and the user is N/A

Any ideas what this is all about??

[maniac]

Those errors are generated when you connect via remote desktop to your server, and it redirects your workstations printers to the server. If your server doesn't have the correct drivers installed for the printers on your workstation it generates these errors. Nothing really to worry about.

mike.