INFO: Terminal Server Console-Directed Pop-Up Print Error Dialog Box Behavior

When trying to print from a Terminal Server (TS) version 4.0 client to a printer (on LPT1) on a TS server, the Printers Folder error dialog box pops up with the following message on the server side, and not on the client side: To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT Server version 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: This problem was first corrected in Windows NT Server version 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 6.

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

Configuration:

• Windows Terminal Server version 4.0, build 419: SP3.
• Terminal Server Client for Windows NT x86, Windows NT 4, SP3.
• Printer installed on Terminal Server: Any.

1. Open the Terminal Server client session and log on.
2. Unhook the printer cable from the machine (Terminal Server).
3. Print a test page from the Terminal Server client.
4. Wait for a while.
5. Notice that Printers Folder error dialog box, with the following message, is on the Terminal Server, and NOT on the client:
   Error writing to LPT1: for Document test page: The device is not ready. Do you wish to retry or cancel the job?

Explanation

The above situation could be a problem for the following reasons:

• The error dialog box coming from the spooler goes to the TS console, and
• It would seem that the print queue would get paralyzed until an Administrator takes care of the error dialog box on the console.

The error dialog box displays on the TS Console by design in Terminal server version 4.0, because the general rule was to display the error where the printer is attached.

Client Printers

This case is handled similar to the local printers. The error dialog box goes to the client, which owns that printer; otherwise, it goes to the console. The reasons for this design are as follows:

• The printer problems can be easily fixed by the person sitting near the printer instead of the user who initiates the job.
• MS-DOS programs, which must NET USE a shared printer, do not transmit a WinStation Logon ID. Therefore, it is impossible to determine the initiator of the print job.
• Systems on the network do not have WinStation Logon IDs.

The error dialog box could be sent to the initiator if the information is available, or sent to the owner if the information is not available. However, this would be inconsistent from the user's viewpoint.

Local (System) Printers

This case is the same as the standard Windows NT Server printer handling. Both the multiuser environments and the "server in a closet" case are handled.

A Windows NT Server alert is sent to the printer Administrators. This alert, however, is sent only once per job if the dialog box keeps timing out, to prevent the overnight flooding of the error messages. If the dialog box is answered, then the ALERT is re-armed in case the job hangs up again.

The local printer pop-up dialog box is sent to the console. This error dialog box times out in 5 minutes if the server is enclosed. If this message is not answered in 5 minutes, however, the job is not deleted. This is to prevent spooler threads from getting buried in the message box, preventing the printer Administrators from deleting the job and/or the printer.

Because the spooler relies on blocking in a message box until an answer is received, the message box is still created on the console with the standard 5-minute timeout. This allows for the correction of the printer problem in less than 5 minutes, or an automatic retry of the job occurs in 5 minutes if the server is "in the closet". If someone purges the job from the Print Administrator during the 5-minute wait, the job is deleted when the message box times out. This keeps the printers from locking up when there is no console access, but still allows resuming faster when someone fixes the printer problem and answers the console.

This is not the "ideal" way to handle the printer error pop-up dialog box for the remote logon user because the client doesn't receive any notification about this event and is left in the dark. This problem has been rectified in Windows 2000 where the error dialog box goes to the correct client session.