Hello, hoping someone might have some direction for me. My environment consist of Windows XP x32, and a few new Windows 7 both x32 & x64 workstations, I have 2 domains controllers 1 2003 PDC and 2000 as the backup and am running in mixed mode. My whole problem began after I migrated the print server from the 2000 (worked flawless) server to a new Windows 7 x64 prof machine, I did this to support my new Window 7 workstations because 2000 just would not support those drivers and am only using this as a temp print server until I get my new 2008R2 later this year. After I got my windows 7 print server up and running and went through the hassle of installing my x32bit and 64bit drivers for xp and Winodws7 and published them in AD I almost immediately had issue with the printers being lost in AD, no users could find the printers, after some research I found some local settings that corrected this problem "Allow printers to be published" and "check published state" all was well for about 2-3 weeks. Now the problem I'm getting is randomly users are not able to connect to network printers they have already installed the message is "Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server" or it give me a permission error that the user does not have sufficient privileges to add the printer, again this happens almost every day and I restart the print spooler service with no luck and after restarting the Windows 7 machine I can finally get things working again. This problem is driving me nuts and I have found no solution, no records in logs and really don’t know where to go from here. Is there any licensing issue I would have using Windows 7 opposed to 2008Server? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Please make sure that File and Printer Sharing is enabled. You may temporary disable firewall and see if it can resolve the issue. If the issue persists, I suggest you download the Universal driver from Microsoft Update Catalog. Then install the driver in Windows 7 printer server and deploy the printer.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.