SP2 network printing hell

Installed SP2 on this XP Pro computer connected on a P2P LAN. While apps
seem to work fine, printing is a bear.

I discovered that some "higher" apps like Adobe Photoshop and AutoCAD 2002
won't print at all (AutoCAD in particular has an internal dialog box popup
REQUIRED to address printing settings with each print job, which to date has
never opened properly since SP2 was installed; I've let ACAD sit for 20
minutes or so just to see if anything would happen, all without luck).
Other apps like Excel and Word take several minutes (approx. ten of them,
but ONLY if I hit the print button on the toolbar; if I try to invoke the
print setup the apps lock up just like the graphics apps) before
successfully sending the doc or spreadsheet off to laser LaLa land, while in
the meantime showing up in Task Manager as Not Responding and tempting the
enforced shutdown of the app.

The two critical printers I always need access to are an HP 5000n laser, and
a large format HP 1055cm DesignJet. The secondary Epson and Canon printers
are not as important, but are equally frustrating to print to regardless of
need.

The printers all display as Ready in Control Panel\Printers And Faxes.

So far, I've deleted the printers and reinstalled them in Control Panel and
I've made sure the latest HP and Epson drivers are on the 'puter. 'Sides
uninstalling SP2, I don't know what else to check.

When experimenting (much to my employer's chagrin), upon immediate bootup I
discovered that Notepad sent out a print job close to normal (pre-SP2).
When attempting a test print in Printers And Faxes\<printer>\Properties, the
routine took several minutes (2 or 3) before successfully sending the job
out.

The printers are all hooked up through older Windows OSs: three Me machines,
one 95 computer. All machines are protected via software firewall:
ZoneAlarm Pro 5.1 for the Me machines and the XP computers also on the
network; some early form of ZA on the Win95 box. Everything runs through a
multi-port hub.

Prior to SP2, all printers were easily accessible. I didn't have to wait
many minutes before print jobs left my machine. I didn't have to go to a
non-SP2 machine to run specific print jobs. So the question is, can I get
back to there and still keep SP2?

Disable the firewall, virus scan and any spyware that might be running on
the computer and give that a try.


"Ihatespam" <> wrote in message
news:%...
> Installed SP2 on this XP Pro computer connected on a P2P LAN. While apps
> seem to work fine, printing is a bear.
>
> I discovered that some "higher" apps like Adobe Photoshop and AutoCAD 2002
> won't print at all (AutoCAD in particular has an internal dialog box popup
> REQUIRED to address printing settings with each print job, which to date
> has never opened properly since SP2 was installed; I've let ACAD sit for
> 20 minutes or so just to see if anything would happen, all without luck).
> Other apps like Excel and Word take several minutes (approx. ten of them,
> but ONLY if I hit the print button on the toolbar; if I try to invoke the
> print setup the apps lock up just like the graphics apps) before
> successfully sending the doc or spreadsheet off to laser LaLa land, while
> in the meantime showing up in Task Manager as Not Responding and tempting
> the enforced shutdown of the app.
>
> The two critical printers I always need access to are an HP 5000n laser,
> and a large format HP 1055cm DesignJet. The secondary Epson and Canon
> printers are not as important, but are equally frustrating to print to
> regardless of need.
>
> The printers all display as Ready in Control Panel\Printers And Faxes.
>
> So far, I've deleted the printers and reinstalled them in Control Panel
> and I've made sure the latest HP and Epson drivers are on the 'puter.
> 'Sides uninstalling SP2, I don't know what else to check.
>
> When experimenting (much to my employer's chagrin), upon immediate bootup
> I discovered that Notepad sent out a print job close to normal (pre-SP2).
> When attempting a test print in Printers And Faxes\<printer>\Properties,
> the routine took several minutes (2 or 3) before successfully sending the
> job out.
>
> The printers are all hooked up through older Windows OSs: three Me
> machines, one 95 computer. All machines are protected via software
> firewall: ZoneAlarm Pro 5.1 for the Me machines and the XP computers also
> on the network; some early form of ZA on the Win95 box. Everything runs
> through a multi-port hub.
>
> Prior to SP2, all printers were easily accessible. I didn't have to wait
> many minutes before print jobs left my machine. I didn't have to go to a
> non-SP2 machine to run specific print jobs. So the question is, can I get
> back to there and still keep SP2?
>
>

Scans with Spybot and Ad-aware yield nothing, just like they did when I ran
them prior to installing SP2 (off the CD, btw). Hijack This shows only the
normal stuff loading up, and Autoruns showed only legit processes in
operation, as does Tasklist run in the command prompt (though I did see I
now have FIVE svchost processes running instead of the four I remember prior
to SP2; a web search of all the listed processes under all the svchosts
showed that they're supposed to be Windoze-legit). This machine, to the
best of my ability, appears to be quite clean from spyware.

As for shutting down the a/v and ZAP: I've give that a shot this weekend
(when I can take us offline) just to see
what will happen. But I'm not feeling optimistic.

When I take this SP2 computer off the network (yanking the ethernet cable),
all print calls load up fine and fast (except for the warnings that the
printers can't be found, of course). Somewhere when this SP2 install gets
to looking for a network printer, or when an app wants access to those
printers, this machine just seems to gets lost.



"Jon Erlandson" <jerlands@no_spam_sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:...
> Disable the firewall, virus scan and any spyware that might be running on
> the computer and give that a try.
>