Can somebody help me here... please....

I recently upgraded the Windows 2000 Pro workstations here in the office to SP4 so I could apply the patch for the DCOM vulnerabilities (Blaster and others).

Since then I have had many complaints and spent many many hours researching to see what I could come up with.

The biggest and most prominent problem is the fact that many users have to wait for minutes before they get the print dialog after hitting the print option under the file menu. This is using MS Word 97, Word XP and Outlook Express 5.5 as well as most, if not all other applications they might be using.

Nothing else has been changed on these machines to cause the problem other then SP4 and the Patches for DCOM and port 135. Everything worked just fine before. The printers are located on the network and are tied in using various jetdirect (some HP, some not) modules and worked fine before on all OS's and fine after on non Windows 2000 machines. Blaster had been present on our LAN but the last trace of it (or its variants) was wiped of that f**king laptop users machine weeks ago. I have XP machines that work fine doing the same tasks as well as older Windows 98 machines.

I have searched google and google groups and have found some hints but nothing has worked or applied here.

I have read and tried MS knowledge base article 224829 regarding the Tcp1323Opts registry tweak, I have put an entry in the LMHOSTS file pointing saqamawnt to IP 10.0.0.1 (saqamawnt is our server name) as per some other information I found, and I have removed 2 sub-keys from HKLM\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\explorer\remotecomputer\namespace and still no luck.

Has anyone seen this problem related to SP4? Is there a solution (before I format and restart from scratch!) Is this Microsoft's way of trying to force a Windows XP upgrade on Windows 2000 users? Our lease on these machine is up this coming spring... I think I will be putting in a serious request to replace the machines with Macs if we continue to have problems such as Blaster and this>

Help... anyone...?


As I get ready to hit the post button I get a positive feedback from a user regarding my last attempt at fixing the problem... seems deleting those 2 keys have fixed it. I will keep you updated on this and any solutions I can verify.

Thanks for listening!
Rene

Very interesting!

I've never had that problem reported here. Hopefully your namespace tweaks solved it.

The only time I've ever seen the Print dialog take a long time to appear is when someone tries to open the print dialog box when their "default" printserver is offline or unreachable. It's doing its network timeout thingy and pausing for 30 seconds' worth of re-tries.

Hi!

I dont know if this relates to you problem, but we had some _major_ problems with sp4 and old HP-drivers.
But in this case the whole printspooler crashed on the printserver... We had to reinstall the server and upgrade all printdrivers on the server and clients.

Ms really did screw something up with sp4 ...

/Fredrik

Ms really did screw something up with sp4 ...

From what I am seeing, they are screwing up quite a few things in an attempt to fix some of these security holes. I still love the response to an issue about one of the patches in Windows XP potentially causing programs like Outlook to take 30-360 seconds to actually launch now. "Wait for Service Pack 2". Something they have delayed till mid 2004, due to trying to wrap some things into it to hold people over before Longhorn ships.

%$@& $#&^% $#*&^$( *)%*)& %*^$*& %#^#!^%#^&#^ $#^%$ (&^$
I just can't win here!
The machine that has been the object of so much torture (the user isn't helping!) Is not responding like I had hoped. I ended up formatting it last week, reinstalling the Service Pack and other crap and then installed the applications the user needed. All seemed fine (deja vu from the other day when I made the previous changes) and I hoped this would solve her problems.

I get a call this morning... "can't print, the fu**ing thig is locked up again and every time I try to print it locks up. FIX IT!"

I go and restart the computer and print the document. Nice and easy but the goddamn computer will have the exact same problem in 10 minutes or so if she tries to print again. I edited the lmhosts file again and am waiting for a phone call from her again.

I am running off to beat my head against a wall somewhere. I'll be back later.

Oh and through all of this the 3 XP Professional machines are working just fine.

blah.

Have you considered a change in career paths?

Yup!
Carpentry is big around here... but there are no year round jobs to be found.

This sucks though. I know it has to do with SP4. Anybody have a quick link to SP3 so I can go back a step and try that. I believe the Blaster bug fix will work with SP2 and above.... hmmmm...

(oh and another problem... only have dial-up available here to me! Ever try downloading a 100+meg file on a 33.6 connection?? Not fun!)

Are you sure it has to do with SP4 on the local machines? Have you tried looking at your print server (if you have one). It's kinda difficult to troubleshoot not knowing all of the details of your network. Just keep in mind the full path of your printing: Workstation to Print Server to Printer (if thats even the case in your network).

Of course, a screenshot or copy of the error message when trying to print would help get you an answer quicker as well.

Just a thought --

Are these printers going to a queue on the server or are you printing to them directly? Have you tried setting them up to print directly to the printer (straight to the HP Jetdirect server orw whatever) and not go through the queue or vice versa? I have also seen the print dialog hang for minutes when the printer is a network queue and the print server machine is down. Never have seen this when you set the machines up to print directly to the networked printer.

In reply to:

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Are you sure it has to do with SP4 on the local machines? Have you tried looking at your print server (if you have one). It's kinda difficult to troubleshoot not knowing all of the details of your network. Just keep in mind the full path of your printing: Workstation to Print Server to Printer (if thats even the case in your network).

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Started happening immediately after installing SP4 on Win2k Pro boxes so I am fairly confident that it is a SP4 issue.

I can print fine from Win9x boxes and WinXP Pro boxes.

NT4 domain with printer on the network (not connected directly to the server).

In reply to:

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Of course, a screenshot or copy of the error message when trying to print would help get you an answer quicker as well.

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Nothing to capture. I (or the user) clicks file, then print and wait for minutes to pass before print dialog pops up. I could capture Task Manager running and showing Word or whatever not responding but I don't think that would be overly beneficial.

Rene

In reply to:

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Are these printers going to a queue on the server or are you printing to them directly? Have you tried setting them up to print directly to the printer (straight to the HP Jetdirect server orw whatever) and not go through the queue or vice versa? I have also seen the print dialog hang for minutes when the printer is a network queue and the print server machine is down. Never have seen this when you set the machines up to print directly to the networked printer.

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This might be a possibility but the 1 server is up and working fine with all other clients. It is only the Win2k SP4 machines that are having problems.

Also noticing that some programs are asking for the CD before they will run. And they ask for the CD everytime. (Lo and behold the software is another MS product, Publisher 2000)

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!


(bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, owww... my head....)

Aparently SP4 is supposed to fix the problem you are having... Ironic isn't it?

Q169131 Print Setup Dialog Box May Take a Long Time to Display

Microsoft Word or WordPerfect?

Strike that... just reread the post.

This may or may not help, but have you applied the lates MDAC update? I mention it only because it fixed a few things for us that we would normally not think it would fix. *Dont ask* Microsoft is weird like that...

In reply to:

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Aparently SP4 is supposed to fix the problem you are having... Ironic isn't it?

Q169131 Print Setup Dialog Box May Take a Long Time to Display

Microsoft Word or WordPerfect?

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Been there, read that. We never had a problem before. I am going to start formatting machines tomorrow (uninstalling SP4 doesn't seem to clear the problem up) and trying them with SP3 (Just a couple of machines to test with).

It happens in any program. Not just a specific program. They could be in Word, or Publisher or Outlook Express or whatever. This just plain stinks.

Good luck to you, friend.

Dont you just wish Linux had the monopoly instead of microsoft?

What's the physical printing topography? Are the printers directly connected, or is there a central print server that all the clients point to or does each client print directly to a network printer with no print server as an intermediary?

If it's the second setup (client -> printserver -> network printer(s)) then have you tried reinstalling an updated driver on the printserver? If it's not, can you set up a machine as a print server and try redirecting the problem machines through it as a trouble shooting step?

If they are printing over the network (machine -> networked printer(s)) are you using TCP/IP ports? Try deleting and recreating the TCP/IP ports (or HP Jetdirect or whatever) and re-creating them. I've solved quite a few print problems with this trick, and I have no idea why it should work, but it very often does. This trick often works on the printservers too.

-Zeke

In reply to:

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This may or may not help, but have you applied the lates MDAC update?

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Downloaded and installed... just waiting for feedback. Actually I will go for a little walk before I hit the continue button....

Crap, she's not there... I'll keep you posted.

Also have a machine formatting and I'll be installing SP3 on it to test. I've got Satellite internet (Bell ExpressVu) at home and it only took 15 minutes or so to download the 130mb Patch (SP3 that is).

Rene

In reply to:

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Are these printers going to a queue on the server or are you printing to them directly? Have you tried setting them up to print directly to the printer (straight to the HP Jetdirect server orw whatever) and not go through the queue or vice versa? I have also seen the print dialog hang for minutes when the printer is a network queue and the print server machine is down. Never have seen this when you set the machines up to print directly to the networked printer.

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They are going to a queue on the server. But I am pretty sure that is not the problem. Other clients (Windows XP and Windows 95 and 98 work fine). I formatted one of these computers and reinstalled everything from scratch. I ten installed SP4 and the same problem appears on that computer. I am starting to wonder if this is somehow related to an incompatibility in the hardware to SP4. All of these Windows 2000 machines are identical IBM units. Maybe I'll have a look at their website.

/me goes surfing

Dont you just wish Linux had the monopoly instead of microsoft?

But surely that just means Linux would then suck instead?

Peter

MDAC installed but not doing the trick. Just got the fatal phone call from my test user.

Time to carry on with the SP3 Install.

Fark.

Just to let you all know that the test machine with SP3 is working just fine. Looks like I have some overtime coming to me. Thanks for the added job security Microsoft!