Occasional Loss of Print Spooler Function
Hi,
It took me a while to find the solution to this issue. In the event anybody has noticed that they have lost their Print Spooler function in Windows 7 (I would assume Windows 8/8.1 as well), it appears that AB12 can interfere with either the DCOM Server Process Launcher or RPC Endpoint Mapper dependency functions. The easiest way to see this behavior is immediately after bootup and certainly within a minute or so, you will no longer see any print devices under the "Printers" settings and/or in the Control Panel's "Devices and Printers". The Service manager will say Print Spooler has started, but has since terminated briefly thereafter a few moments.
I originally fot a workaround by first setting the print spooler service (spoolsv.exe) to manual and then creating a Task Schedule that started my print spooler service 30-40 seconds after I logged onto my account. That worked, but bothered me as to why I had to do that rather than leaving the Print spooler service into it's default automatic startup type.
Finally, with the aid of Hijack Hitman and a few other third party investigative tools, discovered the issue with the print spooler failing to stay started due to an interference with the DCOM Server Process Launcher or RPC Endpoint Mapper dependency functions.
If you notice that of all seven Acronis service functions are started as automatic which means immediately at bootup they grab memory and any dpendency function in Windows to function. Of these seven Acronis services, only two of them, Acronis Managed Machine Service and Acronis Scheduler2 Service have Windows dependencies and they are on DCOM Server Process Launcher or RPC Endpoint Mapper services.
Bingo!! I set these two Acronis services to (Delayed Start) in automatic and the issue is completely resolved. Now the Windows Print Spooler can remain in automatic startup mode and everything works perfectly. No more race condition which left the Windows Print Spooler service "out in the cold."
Chris
