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Windows 7 PC sending items to print several times

Deal all,
I have a strange problem with a user printing from their PC whereby in Outlook they select a number of emails, between 5 and 15 different lines, then they right click and select 'Quick print' - the print begins but they seem to get several copies of the same emails. We usually just stop the print.

Also, when printing from Word, sometimes a document can print several times. This happens with two separate printers.

I am not sure how to troubleshoot as it is not consistently doing this. The PC is connected to a domain where the printers are installed on a Windows 2012 server. There are 5 PCs connected and this is the only offender.

I have tried reinstalling the printers/drivers on the PC

Any pointers on where to start would be appreciated.

Many thanks,
Jack

William Miller

Have you tried resetting the spool service on the offending machine?

Run services.msc
Locate "Print Spooler" and stop the process
Navigate to Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS
Clear the PRINTERS folder contents (Do NOT delete the folder itself)
Re-start the "Print Spooler" process

Let me know if this has any effect.

Edward Pamias

Did you try updating the driver? Or remove the driver and reinstall. Or use PCL6 or PCL 5 depending on which one you have now.

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Edward Pamias

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Jackie Man

Are you using the shared print server from the MS Server or print directly to the fixed IP address of the network printer?

hdhondt

I gather from your question that the problem is happening from multiple applications on multiple PCs. In that case it is most likely caused by the printer hardware. You can confirm that by printing internal test pages (e.g. Config page, service pages, etc).

Have a look at the printer while it is printing. When the problem happens, does the error light flash on briefly? If it does, it is possible that the printer has a minor paper path problem and registers a transient jam while printing. Whenever a jam occurs the printer will reprint the page that caused it.

Jack

ASKER

Thanks all.
I looked at the Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS but it was empty.
This issue is only affecting one machine on the network to the two printers.
The printer points directly to the IP of the printer but it installs off the server when the profile sets up.
I have renamed the old profile to _old and logged in again. It seems OK for the moment but time will tell as the problem was intermittent.
I will update once the user has left for the day.

hdhondt

one machine on the network

I assume this means "one pc", so my guess (that it is hardware related) was wrong.

to the two printers

Do you mean it happens to 2 printers, from 1 PC? Definitely not hardware in the case.

Let's see if the new profile fixes it.

Jack

ASKER

Thank you. A new profile seems to have solved the problem. It has presented another problem though that the user logs in but their profile is now a temporary one [C:\Users\TEMP\].
I have deleted the original folder but it still does it. Anyway - that is for a new question if I can't solve it.
Thanks again.

Edward Pamias

To fix the profile issue. I just go to the profilelist ( Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList ) in the registry and delete the entries that are the same one has a .bak and the other does not. Once you do that you will be able to logon with a normal profile.

Edward Pamias

Also you will see you old user profile in the entry as well that's how you know you have the right one.

Jack

ASKER

Thanks - I seemed to have solved it this morning - it wasn't quite as described in the online articles as I had already deleted the profile without the .bak. I deleted the reg entries with .bak too and that allowed the profile to load as a fresh one.
Jack