Printing problem related to user account type

eMachine W2247 with XP Home and HP K80 OfficeJet

Recently, this POS was having a few more than normal performance issues (examples...regular IE crashes with undefined "driver problem" on MS crash analysis screen, occasional spontaneous reboot followed by "recovered from serious error" message to send to MS). So I used the original disks to do a clean reinstall of XP, then put all my goodies back on it.
Both before and after the XP reinstall, I have had an unusual problem. It showed up about 3 to 5 days before I decided to reinstall XP. I can only print from an administrator account. Any user account that does not have administrator priveledges can not print. If I change the account type, then the user can print.
The printer drivers were freshly downloaded from HP. All available updates have been performed from Microsoft.
When this occurs, there are NO error messages. The printer icon does appear briefly in the notification area, although it is there for a noticeably shorter amount of time than if it were actually printing.
The most recent things done to this PC were to install Kodak EasyShare software. I did this about a week before the print problems, but did not reinstall it after reloading XP. Dev C++ was loaded on this PC about 3 weeks before printing problems, and was reloaded after XP reinstallation.

Thanks in advance for any assistance any of you may have.

Jason

 

Try this:

Control Panel, Printers & Faxes, right click on the Printer and select
Properties... in the Advanced tab, change Spool Print Documents to Print
directly to Printer.

If it doesn't work just change it back.

Steve

 

Thanks Matacumbie. That has done the trick...for now. I am concerned that this may only be treating a symptom of another issue. Is it normal do need to disable print spooling to get a printer to work? This printer (as old as it is) has done great on two different PCs in the last 6 months. I don't ever remember having to bypass the print spooler for this or any other printer.

Anyway, I don't want my rant to steal your thunder. Thanks again for the advice.

 

I think it is caused by third party software. It might help if you can remember what you have installed on this machine that was not installed on the others. Norton Anti-Virus can cause it.

Steve

 

This PC does not have Norton on it. I use AVG on this one. As noted in the first part of the thread, the only recently added software was Dev C++ and Kodak EasyShare. Before that, it was a few weeks since any other software was installed.
After the XP reinstall, I did not install the Kodak software.
So far, following the XP reinstallation, I have yet to experience any of the other issues I originally described, only the problem with printing from a "limited" user account.
OH, wait...not sure if this could be related...due to recent news about Sony's screw-up, I decided to run RootKit Revealer. That was done about 5 days prior to noticing any printing problems, but many of the other issues were already in progress.
Anyway...if this is a good as it gets, I'll be fine for a while, but knowing that something else could be lurking is stirring my curiosity.

Thanks again,

Jason

P.S. Nissan is moving their headquarters to within 30 minutes of my home. I live near the Cool Springs area of middle Tennessee. Any of you geeks that may be coming this wa from California with Nissan, I'll see you at the pub.

 

Not sure if this may ever be important to anyone, but here are some further results of my printing issue.

Just this morning, I re-established my wireless home network for the first time since reinstalling XP on the krappy e-Machine. Another printing issue showed up. I could not print at all from remote PCs. Just for funzies, I re-enabled print spooling, then changed the spool option to "start printing after the last page is spooled." This, so far, has all of my PCs printing fine with no problem for "limited" account types either.
Damn that's a lot of running up and down the stairs in this big-azz house, but...so far, so good.

I hope this is helpful to others someday.

Jason