Word 2003 Won't Print

[VISteve]

Server 2003 Network
Windows XP machines
Office 2003 installed
XP SP2 installed
All current updates installed
Two machines have had this problem.

Word 2003 will not print new documents to shared network printer. It used
to print. Works fine on everyone elses PC. Wordpad will not print new
documents either. This machine can print out of Word to our other network
Printer. When I select print, I get the little Print animated icon at the
bottom of the Word screen but the page does not print. I get no error
messages. I get no activity or messages on the printer. I can print any old
documents I select. Other office products print fine. This happened to
another user on our Server2003 network in Excel but his later "fixed itself!"
We just recently updated our PCs to XP SP2. We have all the latest Office
and XP updates.

I have all the new security (Windows Firewall) turned on.

Attempted soluitions:
Listed Winword.exe as an exception in Windows Firewall. That did not help.
Uninstalled and re-installed Office. No Help.
Turned off Windows Firewall, Pop-Up Blocker, changed IE Security Level to
low---none of this helped.
Uninstalled and re-installed network printer. Did not help.
Prints a Printer test page fine and Prints from non-microsoft products fine.

This sounds really stupid. Maybe I am missing something simple. I am a
tech myself.

I really need to solve this.

Thank you for any help.

SL

 

[Carla]

Server 2003 Network
Windows XP machines
Office 2003 installed
XP SP2 installed
All current updates installed
Two machines have had this problem.

Word 2003 will not print new documents to shared network printer. It used
to print. Works fine on everyone elses PC. Wordpad will not print new
documents either. This machine can print out of Word to our other network
Printer. When I select print, I get the little Print animated icon at the
bottom of the Word screen but the page does not print. I get no error
messages. I get no activity or messages on the printer. I can print any old
documents I select. Other office products print fine. This happened to
another user on our Server2003 network in Excel but his later "fixed itself!"
We just recently updated our PCs to XP SP2. We have all the latest Office
and XP updates.

I have all the new security (Windows Firewall) turned on.

Attempted soluitions:
Listed Winword.exe as an exception in Windows Firewall. That did not help.
Uninstalled and re-installed Office. No Help.
Turned off Windows Firewall, Pop-Up Blocker, changed IE Security Level to
low---none of this helped.
Uninstalled and re-installed network printer. Did not help.
Prints a Printer test page fine and Prints from non-microsoft products fine.

This sounds really stupid. Maybe I am missing something simple. I am a
tech myself.

I really need to solve this.

Thank you for any help.

SL

HI there

Have you renamed Word entries in the registry under HKLM and HKCU?

Try printing with Word in Safe Mode (I'm also running Server 2003
enviro).
Start>Run winword /a
Take it from that side, it's a built-in diagnostic and they have a KB
article about how the different start-up switches work.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=210565



Carla

 

[VISteve]

Thanks, Carla. Tried the safe mode option for troubleshooting. I loaded
Word with the /a /w /x swtich. When I print I get the message that Word is
unable to communicate with the printer. Seemed promising to at least get a
message. BUT, does not work to test printer in safe mode because, as I
discovered, the print spooler service will not start in safe mode. I tried
to force it to start but I got the message that it will not run in safe mode.
Consequently no printers are available in safe mode. If I turn off print
spooling at the server (to get around the "print spooler won't start in safe
mode" problem) and try to print directly to the printer, I don't know how
that troubleshooting tactic will help me because I have to have the spooler
working.

I am going to check with printer manufacurer to see if they need or have
driver update to address possible XP SP2 conflicts.

If you or anyone else has any other ideas I would appreciate hearing them.

Thanks, again.