Event ID 315 — Shared Printer Availability
Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2
This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.
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Shared printer availability relates to whether shared printers are available on the network. When a printer is shared on the network, users with sufficient permissions can connect and print to the shared printer.
Event Details
| Product: | Windows Operating System |
| ID: | 315 |
| Source: | Microsoft-Windows-PrintSpooler |
| Version: | 6.1 |
| Symbolic Name: | MSG_SHARE_FAILED |
| Message: | The print spooler failed to share printer %2 with shared resource name %3. Error %1. The printer cannot be used by others on the network. |
Resolve
Restart the print spooler, fix sharing problems and check Group Policy
To resolve this error, do the following:
Stop and restart the Print Spooler service, and then try again to share the printer. To start or restart the Print Spooler service, use the following procedure:
Warning:** **Restarting the Print Spooler service causes all print jobs to be restarted. Additionally, you might need to reset some printers or turn them off and then turn them back on after restarting the Print Spooler service. On an active print server, perform this procedure outside of normal business hours or during scheduled maintenance time, if possible. Before performing this procedure, take all printers offline and wait for all print jobs to be completed, or pause all printers and wait for all Active print jobs to be completed.
In the Administrative Tools folder, open the Services snap-in.
Locate the Print Spooler service in the list of services, and then confirm that its status is Started. If its status is not Started, select the service and then click Start on the Action menu.
Note: You can also do this from an elevated Command Prompt window by typing the following command: net stop spooler && net start spooler
In some instances, you might receive Error 1068 – "The dependency service or group failed to start" – when attempting to start the Print Spooler service. This can happen if the Print Spooler service relies on other services that are not running. To resolve this issue, use the following procedure:
- In the Services snap-in, right-click Print Spooler and then click Properties.
- Click the Dependencies tab. The first box lists all of the system services that must be running for the Print Spooler service to start. These are the dependencies.
- Make a note of each service, click OK, and then start each service that the Print Spooler service depends on, if the service is not already started. If a service was not already started, right-click it, click Properties, and then confirm that the Startup type is Automatic.
Determine whether you can share files from your computer. Correct any general sharing problem, and then try again to share the printer.
Ensure that the printer share name for this printer is not identical to the name of any other shared printers in the domain. If necessary to avoid this scenario, rename this printer share.
Verify that the Allow Print Spooler to accept client connections policy is enabled. To do this, use the following steps:
- In the Administrative Tools folder, open the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC).
- In the console tree, find the Group Policy object (GPO) that applies to the print server and has the Allow Print Spooler to accept client connections policy set to Disabled.
- Right-click the GPO, and then click Edit.
- Under Computer Configuration, right-click Printers in the Administrative Templates section, and then click Properties.
- Select either Enabled or Not Configured, and then click OK.
- On the print server, open the Command Prompt window, and then type Gpupdate.
- Retry sharing the printer. Sharing the printer may continue to fail until the GPO replicates to the domain controller that the print server contacts and until the GPO is applied to the print server.
If the printer is properly shared, examine the previous errors in Event Viewer to determine the underlying cause for this error.
Verify
To verify that a printer is shared or unshared properly:
- Log on using a user account that has Print permissions to the print queue.
- Attempt to connect to the printer in Windows Explorer through its share name (for example, \\server1\printer1), or open the Command Prompt window and then type net view \\<servername>\<sharename>.