Microsoft KB Archive/185792

= Shared Printers Are Unavailable After a Server Restart =

Article ID: 185792

Article Last Modified on 10/31/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition

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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, \.



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

Keywords: kbenv kbprb kbprint KB185792

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