Shared Printers Are Unavailable After a Server Restart (185792)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition 4.0
This article was previously published under Q185792

SYMPTOMS

After you restart your computer running Windows NT, printer shares on your computer may no longer be available to other users. The Event log may contain the following event: 

   Event ID: 19
   Source: Print
   Type: Error
   Category: None
   Description: Sharing printer failed, <printer name>\<print share name>.

CAUSE

This problem can occur if the comment field for a shared printer contains more than 256 characters, including 2 characters for each new line.

Note that when you initially set up a shared printer with more than 256 characters in the comment field, one of the following messages may be generated:

  • Printer settings could not be saved. The RPC server is unavailable.
  • Printer settings could not be saved. The data area passed to a system call is too small.
  • Printer settings could not be saved. The parameter is incorrect.

RESOLUTION

To allow the system to properly share a logical printer, make sure that the printer Comment field does not have more than 256 characters total. As a test, you may want to copy the entire comment field into notepad and save the text as a file. Check the size (in bytes) of the file to determine whether you have exceeded the 256 character limit.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT 4.0
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:9/7/2001
Keywords:kbenv kbprb kbprint KB185792
©2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.