Windows Server 2000 print spooler problems

Hi, this is my first thread, I have been looking everywhere for answears to my problem, heavent found anything usefull.

The problem I'm having is; I have a 6 Server network set up in my company, they are all running Windows server2000 except for one, which is running win2k3. I think the other servers have been upgraded from windows server NT.
Two of these servers are used as application servers, (Terminal servers), and printer server with about 12 printers, most of them are HP's and a few label printers.
Now all printers are working fine, sometimes (up to 2 a day) I will get a phone call saying, "I can't print ", so when I look at the Printer server the print spooler has stopped, thinking i'g be clever I thought I'll get the spooler to autmatically restart on failure, which it does, but now when I get this phone call "I can't print" I look at the spooler service and it's running, when I look at the Printer folder there is no printers in it, so I go back to the spooler service and manually restart, even though it's claims it's running. After that it works fine for a while, and then I get exactly the same again, every time. This has been going on for a few months now.
Has anyone got any Ideas, because I'm getting to the end of my patience and just going to hit the server with a hammer!
Thanks for your answears and your time

 

What I can recommend is going through all Log files(Events) to see if any unusual error message there.

 

If the printer list is not populated, the spooler service is not running no matter what listing you look at that says to the contrary.

The issue is a bad printer driver, or a bad printer driver installation.

Discussion: http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

When you reinstall, take the time to download fresh and up-to-date printer drivers for the task.

Then see: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,10067019~mode=flat

Additional Reading for any NT-based print server:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324757
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/135406/

 

Since this is a easy check it would't hurt.

I had a 2000 server that was slowly loosing one service at a time. First it lost DHCP service, then I think the next service was the print spooler.

The hard drive was full...... go figure.

 

Sorted

Hi, thanks for all your replies.
I have managed to sort the problems out, it's not the perfect solution, but it works.
I have checked the logs and noticed that users are using old label printers, which we can't seem to find the right drivers for which will allow them to be shared, as the problem only occured when connecting through terminal server, I just figured if I install all printers each user needs to use for each user session and then tell the server not to automatically search for printers on a client pc. Since I done this, I have not had a single problem with any of the servers. It's a good enough solution for me, but if anyone has a better idea of ensuring the right drivers are installed please let me know.
Thank you all