Built-in Win 10 PDF reader playing havoc with our print spooler

[edutech4schools]

I keep getting alerts that our spooler has crashed. After investigation I have found it's an issue with the Windows 10 built in pdf reader and if I change the default to adobe reader the print spooler is fine.

 

This is just a primary school, but I do not want to go round all the computers and change the default, especially as it's a user based setting. Does anyone have any magical scripts or ideas how I can push out the change so pdf's are opened by adobe reader.

 

Cheers

[ITJS2015]

There is a default application section in windows 10, you can default it to pdf so that when you click on it or any pdfs it will open in adobe

[KibosJ]

I keep getting alerts that our spooler has crashed. After investigation I have found it's an issue with the Windows 10 built in pdf reader and if I change the default to adobe reader the print spooler is fine.

 

This is just a primary school, but I do not want to go round all the computers and change the default, especially as it's a user based setting. Does anyone have any magical scripts or ideas how I can push out the change so pdf's are opened by adobe reader.

 

Cheers

 

Do you have a domain controller with GPO?

 

What make printers do you have? We had this issue with Toshiba machines and windows 10 and I solved that.

[edutech4schools]

Do you have a domain controller with GPO?

Yes

What make printers do you have?

It's only causing an issue with both our sharp MFD printers our Ricoh is fine.

 

Thanks for any advice

[free780]

If pcs are on domain set the file associations using a xml file.

[KibosJ]

If pcs are on domain set the file associations using a xml file.

 

I was going to suggest this.

 

Unfortunately I could never get it working, you could have better luck. I ended up setting the defaults in the actual WIM file rather than through GPO.

 

Are you using a print management solution like Papercut? Our problem was related to the Toshiba driver and Papercut.

[MatthewL]

If you put Adobe Reader or another reader on it works fine. The inbuilt options with Windows 10 are causing me a few issues, printing jpg images is the latest but I cannot replicate this one.

[KibosJ]

If you put Adobe Reader or another reader on it works fine. The inbuilt options with Windows 10 are causing me a few issues, printing jpg images is the latest but I cannot replicate this one.

 

We had these problems.

 

If you print from a Win32 App it would work perfectly fine.

 

If you print from any of the modern apps it would either break the spooler or just get stuck.

 

For us this was a setting within the driver that referenced our PaperCut server.

[MatthewL]

I've had it on just printing direct, not had any issues with PaperCut queues so far.

[bigjb]

We had these problems.

 

If you print from a Win32 App it would work perfectly fine.

 

If you print from any of the modern apps it would either break the spooler or just get stuck.

 

For us this was a setting within the driver that referenced our PaperCut server.

 

Do you know what that setting was within the driver?

[TwistedHelixis]

Hello, thanks for all the posts so far. I have also noticed today the issue happens with other Win10 default apps such as jpg viewer, as suggested above.

 

We are not using any other printing software such as papercut.

[edutech4schools]

Just had the same issue but from a Windows 8.1 machine, changing the defaults has fixed the issue.

 

Must find time to look at the xml fix

[KibosJ]

Do you know what that setting was within the driver?

 

Within the Toshiba driver it is the focused setting in the attachment (Server Name)

 

This is in the Toshiba Preferences and then the "Other Tab"

 

Now strangely enough, some of our printers do not have this setting, even though they are the same model and same driver.

 

Changing this from what it was (----Select From----) to Papercut fixed all of our issues with Windows 10 and spooling. Never had a single problem since

 

Edited July 15, 2016 by KibosJ

[TwistedHelixis]

out of interest does the following work?

How to use group policy to change open with file associations

[sted]

out of interest does the following work?

How to use group policy to change open with file associations

 

not above windows 7 iirc definitely not on 8.1/10

[TwistedHelixis]

Just found out the above does not work for win 8 or 10. going to follow this.

 

If You Experience Something Like ...: Windows 8.1 Default File Associations

[TwistedHelixis]

Hello again

 

File associations via gpo all worked a treat but I have noticed the following issue,

 

If a user clicks on a pdf file while browsing from Chrome it opens the pdf in a chrome tab and not Adobe Reader, and printing the pdf from a chrome tab seems to be killing our spooler.

 

Is it possible to get it to open Adobe reader directly while using chrome?

[free780]

I think you can do it with the chrome admx.

[MartinRouterKing]

I have a problem printing all pdfs using adobe reader and the built in. Our users now have to go to print click advanced and then tick print as image otherwise it jams the print queue on the local computer and server until the computer is restarted.