Win2000 Server, my printers have disappeared!

[SMO6]

Just got into the office and got a call about a user not being able to print. I went to check it out and the user's printers have a status of 'unable to connect'. I rebooted the user's machine with no luck. I then checked the print server and all of the printers were gone. This initially pissed me off because I just recently migrated all printers from one server to another....i wasn't mentally prepared to that tideous work over again! I rebooted the print server and all of the printers reappeared. Do any of you know where I can find evidence of why/how my printers suddenly disappear? If the printers had been gone for good, could I use a backed up copy of the 'system state' to recover? Please advise.

 

[ReddLefty]

Your spooler probably crashed. Check the event viewer. It's usually related to a bad printer driver...the key is finding which printer.....

Here are MY unwritten rules that I've come to accept over my years on the job:

- Always get latest drivers for O/S
- Avoid PCL6

I don't know why, but whenever I get out of margin, weird characters, spooler errors, it always falls to the printer that has PCL6. I use PCL5 or 5e and everything falls back into place.



"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[SMO6]

What about the system state question I asked?

Thanks.

 

[ReddLefty]

System State includes more than just the printers. You don't want to start doing system state restores for a crashed printer spooler.



"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[SMO6]

Yes, I understand that the system state includes more than just the printers. However, my original question was: If the printers had been gone for good, could I use a backed up copy of the 'system state' to recover?

My point is: potentially saving myself the hours of work it takes to manually setup all the printers we have here. If I can accomplish the same goal in 30 min to 1 hour instead of 2-3 hours I've saved myself valuable time and saved money for the company i work for.

 

[ntinlin]

Suggest you use printmig from microsoft.com to take a backup snapshot of your printers including ports and drivers.

You can do the backup without user interruption but a restore would require stopping the print spooler.

Neill

 

[SMO6]

I don't say this often but: OMG!

Where was this a few months back when I was migrating printers?! Can this utility be used to migrate from one server to another?! Wow! I'm going to read up on this! Thanks a ton!

SMAUG

 

[ntinlin]

It's been there since NT4 resource kit update 2 I think. Although earlier versions had problems going between NT and 2000. v3.1 is ok with that but you might have to replace any non-W2K compatible drivers.