PDF’s are taking a very long time to print to certain printers from Acrobat 7 on Windows:

1. First, is your printer driver a PS (Post Script Driver) or a PCL driver? This fix only applies to a combination of Adobe Acrobat 7, a PCL driver, and Windows (mainly Vista).

2. The problem, with Adobe Acrobat 7 and PCL print drivers, is that the advancd features and settings of the PCL driver aren’t compatible with some of Acrobat 7′s programming.

TO FIX:

Option 1:

1. Uninstall the printer.
2. Reinstall the printer with a Postscipt driver if one is available.
3. If not, move onto the next option.

Option 2:

1. Select File, Print, and then the Advanced Tab.
2. Select the feature to Print As Image. Click OK to close the dialog box and click OK again.

Option 3:

1. Select Start, then Settings, and then Printers.
2. Right click the printer you want and select properties. Then select the Printing Preferences button.
3. Select the Advanced Tab and under Document Options, select the Disabled choice next to Print Optimizations and click OK.
4. Click OK to close the properties window.

Now you should be able to print PDF’s using Adobe Acrobat 7 on Windows!

Blue screens of death.  Everyone will get one.  No one likes them.  B.S.o.D are very helpful.  They tell you when something is very wrong and needs attention.  Common B.S.o.D will tell you a file and memory address.  Others might only give you a memory address.  Some could be so ambiguous that the computer itself doesn’t even know what it’s saying.  Most B.S.o.D are caused by system files being changed or corrupted. This article is going to be split into multiple articals.

Easy B.S.o.D:

The easy ones are nice.  Stop on ntuser.dat or fatel error at 0x0000008E igty.sys.  You then know what file you are looking to replace B.S.o.D are usually a windows disc (the version of windows you are working on) and a little knowledge of where the file is you are looking for.   First step is safe mode.  To boot into safe mode all you need to do is hit F8 after your bios splash screen.  This splash screen is a Dell logo, for dell computers.  An HP logo, for HP computers.  A Compaq Logo, for Compaq computers….  I think you see the trend.   Once you are in safe mode often times a System Restore will solve the problem.  System restore is a feature in any version of windows XP or newer.  Go to Start–(All) Programs—Accessories—System Tools—System Restore.  Select Restore to a previous restore point and clisk next.  Pick a date that has a restore point before your computer started getting the B.S.o.D, click on it to highlight the date and click next.  Your computer will eventually restart and bring your computer back to before you were getting the B.S.o.D and with any luck your problem has gone away.   System Restore is a tool designed to bring your computer;s core system components back to where they were before they were changed.  System Restore turned off on your machine?  Not to worry.  Now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty.  Your in safe mode.  You have nothing but your wits, a keyboard with a sticky shift key and a optical mouse that needs glasses.  There is a B.S.o.D around every corner.  How do you proceed?  ?Knowing what file you need to replace helps.  Simply find a good copy of the file and paste it over the bad copy. (Backup all files you plan to overwrite)  The file may be in a different location so there is no smoking gun.  A quick google search will ad you in the location of the file.  You may say, “Why not do this first?  It is so easy.”  Sometimes the file a B.S.o.D points at isn’t the real culprit.  Sometimes that is just the file that failed first or was first noticed.  A System Restore will replace all your core system files back to a time before you were getting a B.S.o.D  So recap.  B.S.o.D bad, System Restore good, files could be found under the fridge.

Next article.  How to find out what file is causing the B.S.o.D without the B.S.o.D telling you.

With Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2007 or later, multiple Excel spreadsheets are opened within the same instance instead of being able to open multiple instances and move them to separate monitors.  This can become very annoying if you are working in multiple spreadsheets or comparing them!

This fix involves editing the registry, so please be very careful and backup your registry!!!!

***To back up your registry, go to regedit.exe with your administrator account or privileges and go to “file” and then select “export”.  Name your file and be sure to make sure that the Save as type setting is set to Registration files (*.reg)! Choose where to save the file to and select “save”. I would suggest that you save the file to a disk or flash drive in case of a complete crash.

First, open Excel and click on File, then Options. Select Advanced and scroll down to the “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” under General settings. Check the box and then close Excel.

1. Go to your start menu (the round windows symbol at the bottom left of the screen for Windows 7 users) and in the search box at the bottom, type in regedit.exe.
2. Browse to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open and delete the ddexec key underneath it. You will have to click the little arrow to expand it and then just click on it, and then Right-Click it and select delete.
3. Then click on the “command” key and replace the /e or the /dde on the Default and Command strings in that key with “%1″. Be sure and use the quotation marks, because it won’t work if you forget them!  The (Default) string should now look like: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\EXCEL.EXE” “%1” and the Comman string should look like: xb’BVf!!!!!!!!!MKKSkEXCELFiles>VijqBof(Y8′w!FId1gLQ  “%1”
4. Repeat steps two and three for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open. These two Excel sheets are for the two different versions of the excel extension.  Sheet.8 is for XLS, or Excel’s old file extension, and Sheet.12  is for XLSX, which is the current Excel file extension.  A file extension tells the computer what type of file it is. For example a .doc is a word document, .xlxs is the new excel, and a .ppt is a PowerPoint file.
5. Exit the registry by clicking on the X at the top right and then you can double click on Excel to open it, and double click it again to open a second, separate instance of Excel.

This should correct the problem for you, and I haven’t had any problems with this fix, but please remember that there are many different configurations and many different programs that interface with Microsoft Office products. Editing the registry to change the settings can cause some system instability in certain cases!!

Thank you!

If you cannot manage or add/remove printers and the print spooler service continuously stops, you may have a corrupt print spooler or a corrupt printer driver crashing the print spooler. This can be a very frustrating problem for both the Technician and the User.

To fix this issue, follow these steps:

1. Click on the start button and right click on either My Computer or Computer (for XP or Vista/7) and then click on manage. 

2. Expand Services and Applications and select services. Choose the Print Spooler service and then stop it and restart it.

3. Exit Computer Management and test to see if you can print or add/remove and manage printers.

IMPORTANT!! ————————————————————————————————-

This rarely fixes the issue, or usually only fixes it temporarily.  If this fix did NOT work, then please follow the remaining steps.  I strongly recommend that you follow the remaining steps anyway because the above steps rarely work for the long term. This part of the fix will remove all of your printers and you will have to re-add those printers.

1. Restart the computer and start pressing the “F8″ key on you keyboard.  Don’t worry if it beeps at you, just keep pressing it until the menu appears.

2. Choose Safe Mode and Press Enter.

3. Delete all files contained within these two folders (but not the folders themselves):

• C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers
• C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers\w32x86

IMPORTANT—————————————————————————————————

The next part of the solution involves working with the Windows Registry. If you are not familiar with the registry, please seek assistance because the registry is very complex and any mistakes can cause your system serious problems!

1. Start the Registry editor by clicking the Start button, and then by typing in regedit in the Search Box (Windows Vista/7), or by selecting Run and then typing in regedit in the Run Box (Windows XP).

2. Find and expand this registry Key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86

3. There should be only two subkeys or subfolders:

• Drivers
• Print Processors

If there are any other subkeys or folders, then Delete them by right-clicking on them and selecting Delete.

4. Expand the Drivers subkey from the above step and then Expand the Version-X subkey. (the “x” could be different numbers depending on the version) Now, delete the printer entries by right-clicking and selecting Delete on each printer.

5. Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors key.  Here is a list of the subkeys that need to stay:

• BJ Languagle Monitor
• Local Port
• PJL Language Monitor
• Standard TCP/IP Port
• USB Monitor

If there are any other subkeyes in the list besides the ones above, Delete them.

6. Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers subkey. Delete the printers within the folders (excluding Fax and Microsoft Document Writers).

7. Exit the registry editor. Then detach any printer cables from the computer and restart the computer.

8. Access Computer Management just like from earlier in the article, and right click on the Print Spooler service and click on start if it isn’t already running. Exit computer management.

9. Next add your printers back onto the PC.  Add any network printers you have from the Wizard, or reinstall the print drivers/software and connect the local printers back up for any local printers that you may have.  After adding the printers, you shouls be able to print and manage your printers again.

You are now finished!

You will be able to view a new tip or trick of the trade every week from real IT Professionals.  We will be posting errors aand problems that we have encountered and the fixes for those errors and problems. Feel free to post comments or additional information or tricks that you may have!

Thank you for visiting and please remember to keep all posts polite and professional!