Cannot Use Network Printer If Your Password Is Not Saved (312055)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
This article was previously published under Q312055

SYMPTOMS

If you do not have direct access to a printer, but you do have a user account and password that does have access, you may be unable to print to the same network printer the next time you log on to the computer, and you may receive one of the following error messages:
  • Access is denied.
  • The RPC server is unavailable.
  • Could not start print job
If you check the status of the network printer in the Printers folder, it may appear as:
Access denied, unable to connect

CAUSE

This problem can occur if you did not check the Remember my password check box when you initially provided your credentials to connect to the printer. The spooler will not prompt you to provide alternate credentials again. When authentication fails with the credentials you used to log on, an error is generated.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, click to select the Remember my password check box when you initially connect to the printer so the credential manager will save the proper user name and password to connect to the resource. If you have already set up the printer, delete the printer, and then reconnect to it to receive the prompt again.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

It is important to understand that this problem is not necessarily a security risk because the user must still provide their user name and password in which they saved the credentials to access the printer. If you save administrator credentials under a local user account on a publically accessible computer that has a blank password, this is a considerable security risk. However, if you save a "Print Operator" password under a standard domain account that also belongs to you, this may potentially not be an additional security risk.

However, the best solution is to give the user that is logged on direct access to the shared printer, log on as a user that has access to the shared printer or in the case of a Remote Access connection, having the credentials used to log on to the Remote Access session be the same as credentials that will be used for resources on the remote network.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:12/11/2001
Keywords:kberrmsg kbnetwork kbprb kbprint KB312055
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