Print Dialog takes 4-5 MINUTES to display

I am having a terrible time getting my Toshiba Satellite to print when I use it here on the newwork at work. When I try to print from ANY Application other than one of the MS Office Suite apps, it takes 4 to 5 minutes for the print dialog to display, during which time Windows says the program is "Not Responding ". But, if I just let it sit, eventually the Dialog appears. and I can select and print with reasonable speed.

I have tried numerous things:
1. setting the network printer as the default printer - - No change.
2. bringing in a stand alone printer--No change when I'm hooked up to the network.
3. shutting down all non-essential processes (suggested by the internal network specialist...har, har.)
4. I have GOOGLED the topic and read everything I can find and checked out a couple of forums - - No Success.
5. purchased PCTools' Registry Mechanic and run it several times to "clean things up" - - No change.

The only thing that seems close to solving the problem is to Uninstall WinXP SP 2, but I saw last week that Microsoft is soon going to stop providing support for SP 1. {Thaty may not be a negative, because it seems that SP 2 is causing all of these problems from what I can put together from my reading...}

It seems that my computer is one of the few that can not properly function on the network with regard to printing to network printers.

Also, a related problem. When I attempt to look at My Network Places (when I am connected to the the network here at work, It takes several minutes before that window activtes, if at all.

I sometimes feel like I'd give up my first born to solve this problem. Perhaps the solution is to run LINUX.......

I am in despirate need of help in this matter. So, MS gurus and wizzards, please pick up the challange.

Sincerely (and despirately),


Rundy

 

If your ring is clean of nasties then.....

Old drivers that are still loading at boot and need to be removed...So remove the unnecessary device drivers:

Right-click "My Computer ", left-click "System Properties" box.
Hit Advanced tab and click on the Environment Variables button.
Click the New button below the System Variables panel.

type
devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
in the New System Variable dialog box and in the Variable Name text box, put 1 in the Variable Value text box.
Hit OK, OK again and select the Hardware tab then Device Manager. In Device Manager, goto View and show Hidden Devices.
Expand the various branches in each of the device tree and look for the washed out icons, which indicate unused device drivers.

Remove any unused device driver by right-clicking the icon and select Uninstall.

Done!!!! re-boot.

 

Councillor,

I tried to follow your instructions...the closest I could get was to go to Control Panel, Select System, then the Advanced Tab and Select Environment Variables and click the NEW button. I then entered the information you provided below and the expansion of all of the item trees revealed NO "Washed Out" icons, although there was one with a yellow sheild and an "!" on it. Since I recognized it as an old device, I "Uninstalled" it, and rebooted the computer.

An interesting exercise, but no change in the speed at which the Print Dialog displays (still takes 4-5 minutes) when printing from any application other than one of the MS Office Suite programs.

Thanks for the attempt, but I'm still without a solution.

Regards,

Rundy