Saturday, February 23, 2013

Why I dislike printer drivers in Windows

I'd be battling a crazy case of the mstsc dumps.  Basically what happens is this; I'll remote to a server, and just as i'm getting started MSTSC (RDP)  crashes.  Frustrated as this just started happening no, major changes that should affect the rdp systems. I'm running windows 8 enterprise

it happened just about everytime to a windows 2008r2 box, or through Remote Desktop services.  I scoured Microsoft's new "Support site"  which is a slap in the face to people who've relied on being able to us it but i digress.

So I started up windows debugger, and I had to be quick about it since the main pain was through rds (use F6).  Thanks for split screens.  I was able to attach to mstsc.exe quick enough to catch the first break point. So i continued from that point till the actual crash. which led me to a dell throwing a c0000005 access denied message.  The DLL was dlxbujdm.dll which I traced back to a Dell printer driver...  I really don't like Dell printers.

It was my default printer and never had a problem before, so what happened???  I haven't a clue,  But I removed the printer driver and package, rebooted and no more crashes.  If you get a failure in removing, reboot and try removing again.  I think you'll find it'll work that time.

hope this helps someone else from a headache.


4 comments:

  1. I agree, drivers are the problem sometimes. BTW, if you need to redirect local printer into RDP session I'd recommend you to use third-party software, like http://www.printer-for-remote-desktop.com/ . It doesn't require to have printer drivers installed on the server.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That or http://www.tricerat.com/products/screwdrivers

    ReplyDelete
  3. I recently manually updated my Dell Printer driver because it was printing in negative. It fixed the problem and then this issue replaced it. I didn't have time to uninstall everything and found that Simply disabling printers as a resource in the RDP settings allowed me to connect. This might help if you're pushed for time and don't need to print anything from the RDP session.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is certainly a workaround. Although it depends on the server os that you are connecting too as well.

      Delete