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I work as an administrator in a small company using XP Professional on all computers and two servers with Win 2003 Server. Recently a very unusual problam occured one of the computers keeps connecting to all the printers on the network it doesn't matter if it's an administrator or Domain User as soon as somebody logs in the commputer connects all the printers. The printers are either installed on local computers or on the server and shared. There is no log-on script connecting the printers, I install them manualy and none of the other computers shows such behaviour.

We have a printer which is installed on two computers and both of them share it (I'm moving it to Server from a small PC which shared it up to now, but some computers still use the old connection), meaning this specific computer connects to one of the printer two times and it can't use either of the connections.

How to prevent this self-connecting to all printers (none of the other computers has this problem). If I delte them from the "Printers" folder everything works fine untill I reconnect and the Folder is once again full of all the printers we have.

I solved the smaller problem, computer is now capable of printing on all of the printers (it seems there have been some registry issues), after cleaning the registry and reinstalling the printer it seems to work just fine. But the second thing prevails, the computer connects to all the printers in the network (when I remove one/multiple it is reconnected right after the next log-in by any user).

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    Wow - difficult to know where to start really - what do you think is wrong with multiple PCs being connected to printers, how does this screw things up? also could you give us A LOT more information please. – Chopper3 Nov 09 '09 at 11:54
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    Usually its the other way around, admin's want the workstations to connect automaticly so they don't have to explain over and over how to connect to the printers – SpaceManSpiff Nov 09 '09 at 12:00

2 Answers2

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Some thoughts...

Adprintx can be added to the local workstation to specify printers (and disconnect others) at login using a batch file. Free utility, might have to hunt a bit on Google to find it.

Are you using profiles? It's possible that the user had connected to the printer and it became part of the profile and now something is corrupted. Does the issue persist if you change their roaming profile (or local profile) to a new one and archive/rename/delete the current profile from the local machine? I've seen a lot of weird things that are miraculously cleared with a new profile.

I'm not understanding the part about this workstation connects to a particular printer in a way that the other two can't use it...? Usually if a printer is connected via printer sharing it doesn't matter how many have it simultaneously installed for use.

Bart Silverstrim
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  • What I'm reading it is two computers are sharing the same printer and this particular computer connects to both shares and can't print to either one. – Shial Nov 09 '09 at 14:43
  • @Shial: IP printer, two computers have it installed and in turn are sharing it as a Windows printer, meaning a user can connect and print to the printer as , \\computer1\printer, \\computer2\printer, but this wonky system isn't able to actually *use* \\computer1 or \\computer2 even though it's added? weirder still. – Bart Silverstrim Nov 09 '09 at 15:16
  • Anything showing up in the logs when this system is logging in? Does it happen with anyone who logs in or just that primary user?... – Bart Silverstrim Nov 09 '09 at 15:17
  • It happens with both Administrator and one of the Domain Users, I haven't tried logging in as another user since I'm connecting via remote desktop. I 'll try that tommorow thou. –  Nov 09 '09 at 15:45
  • OK I tried and it works with any user, even with one who is using the PC for the first time. –  Nov 09 '09 at 16:31
  • nothing in the logs? Computer evidently doesn't run something like deep freeze? Download the sysinternals suite and run the autoruns program to see if there is something running that may be doing something weird with the printers...? – Bart Silverstrim Nov 09 '09 at 16:44
  • Nope, I didn`t find anything in the logs. I tried the sysinternals (it's great btw) but I did not find anything interesting here either tere are no programs running after the start up, everything seems clear but right after log on all the printers are connected again. Of course I could have missed out something in the sysinternals or logs. –  Nov 09 '09 at 17:32
  • Bad bad idea...but maybe worth seeing what is hit...open regedt32 and do a string search for your mystery printers, see where they may be showing up in the registry, then search for references to what the registry keys are for. Might give a clue. But be really really careful about playing in that, of course (standard disclaimers apply). Might not hurt to do the search for some strings at least. – Bart Silverstrim Nov 09 '09 at 17:54
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Only one machine has this problem? Wipe and reload it, time is precious...

...if the problem disappears, it was a local problem or malfunction. If the problem persists, it's a centralized problem affecting that machine name/account or user login/group policy/whatnot.

One can "connect" printers by simply importing a registry dump, it could be a local script or application, or dysfunctional malware. If you're really curious I'd take an image of the machine before wiping it for future trouble-shooting purposes.

Oskar Duveborn
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