Windows Printing Issues - a broken print spooler since when? Win 95?

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Windows Printing Issues - a broken print spooler since when? Win 95?

RC

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#272249 16-Jun-2020 14:17

I see a recent article on Engadget.com detailing yet more woes with Windows 10 updates. This time, its not apparently causing loss of personal data, or bricked devices, but .... printing issues (including in some case - print to PDF)

https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-windows-10-updates-printer-bugs-000112943.html

A current network issue at our work which has seen me trying to connect and successfully print to various network printers in the office has reminded me of a printing problem which has persisted for at least 20 years - clogged print manager with old files sent to print which cannot be deleted ("cancel") or "restarted".

Aside from wondering if now is an even better time to encourage management to dump MS and move the whole office to Linux, I ask why MS can't resolve bugs like this which seemingly date back to Win 95 or at least XP and persist to this date.

Linux

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#2505758 16-Jun-2020 14:18

Forced update printer drivers over night causing us headaches today FFS!

RC

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#2506006 16-Jun-2020 18:35

I feel the pain. A recent interviewee comment on Antic Atari Podcast (celebrating 8 bit Ataris) was that it is was faster to create and print a document on an Atari 800 than a modern pc- insert Atari Writer cartridge, turn pc on, word processor appears within seconds (or 20 seconds if loading from disk) type document and print.

I appreciate that Atari Writer is useless for today’s needs (WriteNow running on a Mac classic or 512 is probably a better comparison to modern desktop word processing) but still lament the fact that we are now quality control for IT vendors.

Hope you sorted it or managed to roll the drivers back and prevent further forced updates (at least until the vendor changes the mothership ports / IP address)

richms

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#2506008 16-Jun-2020 18:38

There is so much legacy crap that ties into printing that if they change anything it would probably break some peoples apps.

I have only had issues with print spooler when using crap printer drivers from HP, keep those away and it seems problem free.

Richard rich.ms

KiwiSurfer

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#2506016 16-Jun-2020 19:03

Never had any issues printing at home even using HP's drivers (which I've found are pretty good). I always disable all the extra junk printer manufacturers include in their drivers which helps tho.

Network printers at $EMPLOYER are another story alltogether. Took the IT team at $EMPLOYER and their $IT_COMPANY months to work out how to get my one MacBook to print reliably to one Ricoh copier. Previously it'd fail with certain documents only to that specific copier (the more complex it was, the more certain the failure which made tracking down the cause tricky!) So printing issues exist on other platforms as well. But worse since sometimes it's so rare the support guys can't always pinpoint the cluprit and solve it as quickly. Hoping they swap my MacBook out for a HP/Windows machine in the next round of lease renewals...

MadEngineer

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#2506028 16-Jun-2020 19:40

Ricoh can and should be looking after that for you.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

1101

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#2507377 18-Jun-2020 13:23

KiwiSurfer:

Never had any issues printing at home even using HP's drivers

I have , 2 different HP printers simply didnt work on a new Win10 build (2 separate customers)
1 year old HP printer, new Win10 PC, would print 1 single page then nothing . Worked perfectly on the Win7 PC
So the customer had to go & buy another new Printer .

HP drivers, pfft. For the 1year old printer above , HP didnt have 10 drivers, they had be be installed via Winupdate drv download. So no way to manually
install a new driver .

HP , the WORST printer software & drivers. Great machines, lousy drivers .

Going back a very long time, HP driver software stopped working after a IE update (yes an IE update) .
A known issue that wasnt fixed for months. HP did nothing.
A software tech went through the code, fixed it, uploaded to forums. He said it was HP's lazy programmers that caused the issue .

New World

Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

robjg63

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#2507462 18-Jun-2020 14:32

1101:

I have , 2 different HP printers simply didnt work on a new Win10 build (2 separate customers)
1 year old HP printer, new Win10 PC, would print 1 single page then nothing . Worked perfectly on the Win7 PC
So the customer had to go & buy another new Printer .

HP drivers, pfft. For the 1year old printer above , HP didnt have 10 drivers, they had be be installed via Winupdate drv download. So no way to manually
install a new driver .

HP , the WORST printer software & drivers. Great machines, lousy drivers .

Going back a very long time, HP driver software stopped working after a IE update (yes an IE update) .
A known issue that wasnt fixed for months. HP did nothing.
A software tech went through the code, fixed it, uploaded to forums. He said it was HP's lazy programmers that caused the issue .

Years ago we had a very nice little HP black and white laserjet. Worked on windows 95 and 98 and nothing beyond.

It seems the drivers (never updated beyond win 98) downloaded some sort of firmware stuff to the printer to make it function. There were plenty of people on the web that grizzled about it - but never a solution. I kept that printer for years after and would look online just in case someone ever worked a way around it - but eventually it got dumped.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

MadEngineer

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#2507673 18-Jun-2020 18:59

Was it network connected? I always add network printers by starting with the port install with the printer on a static IP.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

clinty

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#2510207 23-Jun-2020 09:16

Patches are out for this issue:

Out-of-band update for an issue in which certain printers may be unable to print after installing updates released June

An out-of-band optional update is now available on the Microsoft Update Catalog to address a known issue in which certain printers may be unable to print after installing updates released June 9, 2020.

We recommend you only install this optional update if you are affected by this issue. For more information, see the known issues section for your version of Windows 10 or see the links below.

For instructions on how to install this update for your operating system, see the KB for your OS listed below:

Windows 10, version 2004 (KB4567523)
Windows 10, version 1909 (KB4567512)
Windows 10, version 1903 (KB4567512)
Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server 2019 (KB4567513)
Windows 10, version 1803 (KB4567514)
Windows 10, version 1709 (KB4567515)
Windows 10, version 1703 (KB4567516)
Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows Server 2016 (KB4567517)
Windows 10, version 1507 (KB4567518)
Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 (KB4567521)
Windows Server 2012 (KB4567522)

Clint