Access Violation in Windows Explorer When You View Printer Properties in Active Directory

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q317250

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SYMPTOMS

If you try to view the properties of a printer that is published in Active Directory, Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) may generate an access violation and stop responding (hang).

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CAUSE

This behavior may occur if both of the following conditions are true:

The printer has not been previously installed on your computer.

-and-
You try to view the printer properties by following these steps:
1. In My Network Places, double-click Entire Network.
2. Click the entire contents link, double-click Directory, and then double-click the domain.
3. Double-click the organizational unit (OU) that contains the printer, right-click the printer icon, and then click Properties.

This behavior is dependent on the specific network configuration, Active Directory access times, and local resources. It occurs in a race situation, where the operating system calls the DllCanUnloadNow routine while in the middle of creating a new thread, and because the thread has not yet been created, the operating system unloads the dynamic-link library (DLL).

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260910/EN-US/ ) How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

The English-language version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

   Date         Time   Version        Size     File name
   -------------------------------------------------------
   21-Mar-2002  18:26  5.0.2195.5212  381,200  Printui.dll

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WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, connect to the printer before you try to view the printer properties. To do this, follow these steps:

On your desktop, double-click My Network Places, and then double-click Entire Network.
Click the entire contents link, double-click Directory, and then double-click the domain.
Double-click the OU that contains the printer, right-click the printer icon, and then click Connect. Follow the steps to install a printer driver, if prompted to do so.
Right-click the printer icon, and then click Properties.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 3.

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