Hello,
We have Windows Server 2012 and clients using Windows 8. We've been having some printer problems for awhile now that I haven't been able to figure out for the life of me. The main problem is the fact that printers are installed on computers automatically once the drivers are installed. The side-effect of multiple instances of each printer showing up is very annoying but I suspect fixing the initial problem will resolve this secondary one.
Here is the rundown:
- We add the shared printers on logon to the clients using the GPO thus installing the drivers locally.
- Whenever the spooler on the client is restarted with the drivers installed, all of theshared printers that were previously installed get duplicated 5 more times (for a total of 6 instances of each shared printer) on the "Devices and Printers" page. This happensall the time.
- Removing them only fixes the issue temporarily, as soon as the spooler or computer is restarted, it seems these shared printers are somehow found on the network and the duplicates return.
- Two of these printers are located on different clients, installed locally and shared while the other three are all installed on a server and shared through it. The issue is the same on all of them.
- Cleaning the spooler completely (registry and files from C:\system32\spool) fixes the issue temporarily as well since, as soon as the drivers are reinstalled, the issue occurs again.
I've tried many things (disabling the GPO, editing the GPO, printer shares, registry, etc.) and searched tirelessly online for a cause and solution but I'm stumped. Does anybody have any idea what might be causing this problem and how to resolve it?
Thanks for your time!
Update #1: I just tried adding the NoNetCrawling option in the registry found in this article -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320138/en-us
I couldn't find the same for Windows 8 unfortunately. I also tried disabling network discovery and all other sharing options to no avail.
Update #2: I tried isolating the computer to a different subnet and restarting the spooler and, sure enough, the issue didn't occur. This proves that the issue is network share related. Also, as soon as I change the IP back to the regular domain subnet one, the multiple printer instances re-appeared again.
Update #3: I just tried doing the same thing but on the server where the printers are installed and shared and, sure enough, despite being in a different subnet, the issue occurred. This leads me to believe there is a setting on this server at fault. Question is, which one?