Delay to Devices and Printers

[Bankesy]

Hello

 

I am hoping that somebody can help with the following situation:

 

In a particular classroom with a particular networked printer the Windows 7 workstations are what I would consider to be slow at detecting the presence of the printer.

 

What I mean by this is:

1. In applications such as Office I will get a 'No Printers Installed' message but after closing down and re-opening it will appear

2. Opening devices and printers from the start menu does not display and printers or faxes for a few minutes but does eventually

 

Here is what I've tried so far:

1. Updating the printer driver

2. Installing the driver manually (not via group policy) to another machine in another room-worked perfectly fine

3. Office repair\uninstall and re-install

4. Running a Microsoft Fix-It which repaired print spooler issues (apparently)

5. Fully updating Windows

6. Hard drive clean up (de-frag\error checking)

 

Conclusions so far:

1. It's not an Office problem

2. It's not a driver problem

3. It's not a PC problem as 3 out of 4 in the room are the same make and model but the symptoms occur on the 1 other machine as well

4. It's not login related as the symptoms occur regardless of staff\student logon

 

One possible hint: the delay I speak of does not occur when logging on locally, only when logging into the network.

 

Any knowledge or suggestions on this are welcome, perhaps and obvious troubleshooting step I've missed?

[Zourous]

You might have already tried it, but have you deleted the actual printer off of the print server and started again? Sometimes I've found this to be the solution.

[Zourous]

Also, if you moved one of the PC's it has a problem with to a different room, does the same problem happen?

[Bankesy]

Hello

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

I have not completely removed and re-installed the driver from the server, I was trying to avoid this at first due to lack of experience.

 

Do you mean have I physically moved the PC to a different room? Are you thinking this might make a difference because it will be connected to a different switch in effect?

[Zourous]

It should be fine to remove the driver from the server providing there are no other printers sharing the same driver.

 

Yes, move the PC physically, then whatever the result you've cut the problem down. If the PC works in another room you can disregard the PC being at fault and it could be a location thing (i.e. switch, cables, databox), if it doesn't it must be something on the PC.