spoolsv.exe service crashes instantly. Running out of ideas.

[slartie]

Hi all,

First things first. I'm trying to get a Windows 2003 Server to coorporate with me, but the print spooler service keeps crashing. My eventlog gives me the following error:

"Faulting application spoolsv.exe, version 5.2.3790.1830, faulting module tcpmon.dll, version 5.2.3790.1830, fault address 0x0000414b."

I have searched the net for quite a while and have been trying a number of different things in the quest for solving this problem. Currently, there are no printers connected to the server, so this is not "critical", but I would really like to get the spooler up, so I can promote the server to print server and relieve our old NT 4.0 server from another task (one step closer to its retirement)

I have gone through the following registry entries and cleared out any non-default entries.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print/Environments/

Environments is basically blank now apart from "winprint" in the "Windows NT x86 branch" as instructed by a Microsoft article

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print/Monitors/

Only Local Port, Standard TCP/IP Port and USB Monitor are left on this one.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print/Printers/

Printers is empty.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print/Providers/

Checked Providors for any non-standard entries, but it was clean.

c:\windows\system32\spool\printers

This folder is empty

c:\windows\system32\spool\prtprocs\w32x86

This folder has three files: hpzpp041.dll, lmpclnpp.dll and sfmpsprt.dll

I haven't been able to figure out whether or not it is safe to delete these, so I haven't touched those yet.

c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\

this folder is empty apart from a subfolder called "color" which holds a single file: "srgb color space profle.icm"

I've tried the spooler tools from rktools.exe (2003 server toolkit) but obviously none of them will run since the service won't run.

I have tried to find articles describing how to reinstall the print spooler or something to that effect, but without much luck.

ANY help from you guys is greatly appreciated!


With kind regards,

Lars Wiberg

 

[wdoellefeld]

A couple things I thought of..

1. Have you tried a system file check by chance? SFC /scannow

2. Re-register ntdll.dll. Start-> Run ->type regsvr32 ntdll.dll

(yay! shameless advertising. my side business)

http://www.frcp.net

 

[markdmac]

Delete hpzpp041.dll. This problem is usually related to a bad driver.

You don't mention if you are running SP1 or not. If not, install SP1.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[slartie]

Thank you for your replies so far.

I have tried SFC /scannow, but it seems my updates cache is messed up. I am going to try to rebuild the cache somehow and give SFC another go.

The server is running SP1, but it looks like I have to reinstall a number of patches in order to get the before mentioned SFC scan to work.

Should I just go ahead and re-apply SP1 if possible?

 

[MiniOrganMorgan]

Won't hurt to re apply SP1.