VMware Fusion ThinPrint causing print spooler to stop working in Vista64 Bootcamp?

[yfc]

Hi,

I have a Vista 64 SP1 Bootcamp partition that I have set up in VMware Fusion 2. Everything was working fine and dandy and I mostly used. I recently installed the updated version 2.0.3. A few days ago, I booted into Vista native (Bootcamp) and am encountering the following error:

"The Spooler SubSystem App has stopped working."

I look through the error log, and it seems the faulting module is TPVMMon.dll, which seems to be the ThinPrint that VMware uses for driverless printing.

Each time I try to start the "Print Spooler" service manually, it would fail with the same error. And I can't print anything anymore in Bootcamp.

The weird thing is, it works fine when I am booting Vista in VMware Fusion. No printer spooler error. I have enabled "printer sharing" between the virtual machine and OSX. Notice thought, that for some reason, driverless printing on the VM doesn't seem to work anymore. When I try to print something, it just disappears, and nothing is printed out (I have verified that it's not the printer's problem, I can print fine under OSX).

Most urgently, I would like to solve the printer spooler problem under Bootcamp. I would hate to get this error everything I boot Windows, and not be able to print natively.

Any help / clue would be greatly appreciated. I would be glad to provide any logs if necessary.

Regards,

yfc

Vista error log:

Product

Spooler SubSystem App

Problem

Stopped working

Date

07/04/2009 1:25 PM

Status

Not Reported

Problem signature

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH

Application Name: spoolsv.exe

Application Version: 6.0.6001.18000

Application Timestamp: 4791a2af

Fault Module Name: TPVMMon.dll

Fault Module Version: 2.0.51.5

Fault Module Timestamp: 48359080

Exception Code: c0000005

Exception Offset: 000000000000846e

OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1

Locale ID: 4105

Additional Information 1: 692b

Additional Information 2: aab4f5d5e677c5aa87f69f7e1f0d1212

Additional Information 3: d53e

Additional Information 4: 61518fdf00342aefedbb4e119fa72d66

[yfc]

Additionally, I have looked around on the forums and have realized the following:

When I try to add a printer over the "ThinPrint" port manually, I get an error.

1) Go to Control Panel -> Printers

2) Go to Add Printers

3) Add a local printer

4) Create a new port -> Type of port: ThinPrint Print Port Monitor for VMware

5) When I press Next, I get the error: "Specified port cannot be added. Operation could not be completed (0x0000007e)" .

This leads me to think my module for ThinPrint Print Port Monitor for VMware (TPVMMon.dll) is somehow corrupted. Does anybody know how I can get a fresh installation of this module?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Regards,

yfc

[GenericBum]

I am having this exact same problem.

I am running VMWare Fusion 2.0.3 on a MacBook Pro. I started with Fusion 2.0 and have been upgrading every time a new version comes out.

Faulting application spoolsv.exe, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x4791a2af, faulting module TPVMMon.dll, version 2.0.51.5, time stamp 0x48359080, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000000000000846e, process id 0x12f0, application start time 0x01c9ba509a8383b0.

When I run Vista Enterprise from bootcamp, then I get the following error message "Spooler SubSystem App stopped working and was closed". No printing works at all.

When I run that same partition from Fusion, everything works fine.

Please let me know if you've found a fix.

Thanks,

GenericBum

[bfdavies]

Having the exact same problem. I tired deleting all printer references int he registry as Microsoft Tech Article suggests, but that does not solve any problems. I just built Windows Vista on BootCamp and plan to use BootCamp and Fusion. Not running BootCamp and not printing is not an option.

I look forward to this resolution. Thanks!

[GenericBum]

Has anyone else heard about a fix for this issue?

I've tried everything on the MSDN site. The problem is very irritating. I can't save any files from Adobe Illustrator because it attempts to access the print spooler. Adobe PDF doesn't work either.

Thanks,

GenericBum

[yfc]

Hi,

As I suspected, it is ThinPrint, which is installed by VMware Tools for driverless printing, that is causing the issue.

I have found a partial fix, which involves manually unregistering ThinPrint dlls and removing references from the registry.

It is not for the faint of heart since it involves playing with the registry; if you screw up I am unsure as to what will happen. (vive Windows ... sigh)

The forum provides a tool that will "automagically" remove it for you, but depending on your version of Windows, it might not work ... you need to modify the steps a little bit (i.e. the paths are going to be different). I had Windows Vista x64 and I did the steps and my Bootcamp partition does not exhibit the error anymore, and I can use the printer spooler.

cd "%PROGRAMFILES%"\VMware\VMware Tools\"

uninstall TPAutoConnect service

TPAutoConnSvc.exe /uninstall

remove TPAC components

del /F TPAutoConnect.exe

del /F TPAutoConnSvc.exe

cd "%WINDIR%\system32\"

unregister TPSVC

regsvr32 /u TPSvc.dll

unregister TP Portmonitor

rundll32 TPVMMon,InstHelper uninstall

remove TP printer drivers

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dd /m "TP Output Gateway"

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dd /m "TP Output Gateway PS"

stop spooler

net stop spooler

remove TP print processor

run "regedit" + remove this key

HKLM\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Print\ Environments\Windows NT x86\ Print Processors\ tpwinprn*

restart spooler

net start spooler

remove all remaining TP components

del /F "%WINDIR%\system32\TP"* (yfc: you might want to make sure to really remove only the ThinPrint components)

del /F "%WINDIR%\system32\spool\prtprocs\w32x86\TPWinPrn.dll"*

remove TP registry key

run "regedit" + remove this key

HKLM\ Software\ ThinPrint

As I said, this is a partial fix because, well, this effectively disables VMware Tools' driverless printing. So it's a trade-off. Not that I care, because driverless printing wasn't working for me anyways. I am unsure if this effectively removes all traces of ThinPrint, but heck, this fixes the problem and it's fine by me. I also don't know what will happen when VMware is going to release a next version of Fusion. Hopefully it will be fixed; if not I might have to manually remove ThinPrint again.

I blame this on ThinPrint and on VMware for lack of testing thoroughly (i.e. with Bootcamp) before integrating this 3rd-party component before releasing.

Regard,

yfc

[DrQuest]

Thanks yfc, that fixed the problem with TPVMMon.dll I was having since installing VMware Fusion 2.0.4 and using a boot camp partition with Windows 7 build 7000. Here is the excerpt from my event viewer:

Faulting application name: spoolsv.exe, version: 6.1.7000.0, time stamp: 0x4943394d

Faulting module name: TPVMMon.dll, version: 2.0.51.5, time stamp: 0x48359080

Exception code: 0xc0000096

Fault offset: 0x0000000000016067

Faulting process id: 0x454

Faulting application start time: 0x01c9c2156fa87dfa

Faulting application path: C:\Windows\System32\spoolsv.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\TPVMMon.dll

I had to modify a couple of the steps for my particular situation (x64 instead of x86), but the spooler has been runing and printing for about 10 minutes now, which is 9 minutes and 59 seconds longer than before.

[ChannelD]

I am having the same problem. After much grief installing/reinstalling Vista x64 Bootcamp initially thinking I had installed a corrupt Cannon driver I to discovered it was VMFusion 2.00 or 2.03 that is the problem. While more specifically the VMTools installation. If I do not install VMTools I have a working (remote) printer from both from within the virtual PC and the BOOTCAMP Windows. The downside ATM is I do not have a sound driver or base system driver(?) installed. Sharing a directory is handled by a networked HD as sharing a Mac directory is not operative either.

Just an alternative to the above as I do need printing to be working more than sound. (Have tried to get the sound working, but you need a Creative SoundBlaster PCI128 driver installation which I have not been able to locate)

Not having VMTools installed does not appear to have many disadvantages. Are there any other disadvantages to not having VMTools installed?

[yfc]

The ThinPrint drivers do come with the VMWare Tools installation, so I guess you can avoid the problem by not installing that.

HOWEVER, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think VMWare Tools handles the switching of the Microsoft Windows / Office activations between the Bootcamp / virtual machine environments. So unless you have Windows / Office licenses that allow infinite number of activations, not having VMWare Tools may not be the best idea ...

Can anyone from VMWare confirm this, and give us an estimate of when/if this issue with ThinPrint will be fixed??

[yGoHome]

I opened a vmware tech support ticket on this subject.

I am haveing the same problems described above. The Vmware Tech Support says it is not their problem since the spool error only occurs when booting natively inside of Vista via Bootcamp and the problem doesn't occur inside of the Fusion Virtual Machine guest OS. Even though it is their software that is causing the problem. They suggested I contact MS support. lol. I told them I would so I'm going to keep my word on that. But I don't have a whole lot of faith in getting this thing resolved.

If any others are having this spool error in Vista 64 via bootcamp, please post up here so Vmware will focus/recognise this is not an isolated case that they can ignore.

Or better yet, if you have found a solution, let us know that too.

I'm about resigned to either remove Vmare Fusion all together or remove Vista 64 and reinstall XP 32 bit instead.

Thanks,

Ben

[yfc]

The response you received from that VMWare tech support rep is completely ridiculous.

This is like VMWare saying, "we've made a new software to view JPEG images; there's a little problem in that once you've opened up a JPEG in our software, you can't open it w/ Photoshop anymore, but we're not going to fix it because it works in our software".

What a deplorable attitude.

I was hoping that this would be resolved by 2.0.5; but it is not even in the list of known issues.

I'm considering switching to Parallels.

- yfc

[yGoHome]

I very much felt that Vmware was passing the buck when I contacted them for support.

well, there is GOOD news! I did contact Microsoft via their online chat support. They have several different categories of support, as you can imagine. I selected general support for Vista 64.

I explained first that I was getting the spool errors at bootup and the faulty file was TPVMMON.dll and that file was from new software I had installed from Vmware Tools. I asked them if there was a way to disable that DLL or to delete it.

I explained that this error would happen immediately after booting and even when not trying to print. And in fact I could not even add a printer because Vista would tell me that the print spooler was not running.

The tech outlined what we'd be doing to try correct the problem and asked if he could remote connect to my laptop. I said, sure... what have I got to lose?... I was considering dropping vista and or fusion altogether so might as well try.

first he wanted to uninstall any printers and their software. Of course I didnt have any printers installed so that part was quick and easy.

He then went to the physical directories under Windows NT (x86) and deleted the printer and spool directories.

He tried restarted the print spool service at that point. And although it appears to start fine, it immediately stops/dies.

Next he went into regedit and dropped some folders (sorry, I wish I could remember which ones we dropped).

Then I rebooted. The spool error did not appear after the reboot. That was a good sign. Then I installed my HP printer drivers and software. I went to "Add Printer" and Vista found my wireless network printer and connected.

Prints fine now! And no more spool errors.

Anyways, Vmware Tech was right... contact Microsoft because they actually have phenominally good support based on my experience with them today. No switching to other techs and no misunderstandings... the MS techs know what they are doing.

I know this doesn't help anyone looking for an immediate sollution. But if you contact MS they can walk you through it or remote in and do it for you.

Thanks,

Ben

[ecytang]

Microsoft has provided an official solution to the print spooler problem, check the following link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324757

It said it is for XP but it works for Vista 64 bit in Bootcamp as well. I have tried it and it brought my printer setting back in bootcamp.

[bfdavies]

I beleive I tried the MS Article but it did not work in my case. Maybe I'll try again, but honestly I started using Parallels and had no problems so haven't spent any more time fighting with the ThinPrint issue. The VMWare additionas should not cause any more problems, especially when you boot an OS to have kernal conrtol of the hardware. I would still like to see a VMWare test and posted fix to this problem as I see it being a potential in Windows7 x64 (although i haven't tried yet because I don't want to screw up my Windows 7 Bootcamp build).

Oh yeah - I forgot that VM Ware doesn't work for Windows 7 yet!

[yGoHome]

Ecytang,

Those are the exact steps outlined under the "Let me fix it myself" section of that link that the Microsoft Tech Support did when he remote connected to my laptop.

Worked great. Thanks for posting. Hopefully Vmware will take notice of this issue and do something about it. Like someone else said, Windows 7 64bit will have this same problem otherwise.

Thanks,

Ben

*EDIT: MS Support emailed me a summary of what we did when they remote connected to my laptop to fix this. It is basically the same steps in that link above that Ecytang posted:

Action:

===============

Trying to Print from the Computer.

Result:

===============

Unable to Print - Spooler Subsystem App has Stopped Working.

Cause:

===============

Issue may occur if a third-party printer driver or services installed prevents you from adding printers or the third-party service affects the functionality of a newly installed printer.

Resolution:

==============

Deleted the Registry Key related to the Printer, Installed the Printer Software and to be able to Print from the Computer.

Let me help you with the point that we tried with the issue resolution:

1, Deleted the printer folder and W32x86 from C:\Windows\System32\Spool.

2, Deleted the Existing Printers from Control PanelàPrinters.

3, Deleted the Printer related registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers

4, Downloaded and Installed the printer software from HP's website

[yfc]

The steps both from the MS Support and from the MS article involve removing the faulty 3rd party printer driver, which in this case is the ThinPrint drivers installed with VMWare Tools, in order to get the print spooler working. What I did in my first posts to fix it is similar.

IMO, this is only a partial fix to the problem, because 1) driverless printing when in the virtual machine will not be working (the ThinPrint drivers are removed) 2) updating VMWare Fusion from one version to another may involve re-installing the VMWare Tools and thus requiring doing the fix again. This will only be fixed when VMWare decides to recognize the issue and fix the ThinPrint drivers.

yfc

[staffochi]

FWIW folks, I was able to resolve this using autoruns.exe from www.systernals.com - it's a lot easier than hacking one's registry. Just turn off the thinprint items via the autoruns gui and all is well. This seems to hold up even after vmware is re-installed. Thanks for the guidance here - this issue was driving me batty.

- Rich

[jeburnett]

I had only found two Thinprint services to disable and having done so, still have the problem. Can you please tell me which ones you disabled?

Thanks!

Jonathan

[eswanzey]

Maybe this will save someone some pain.

A quick simople fix to get your printers back - applies to Windows 7 running natively on a MacBook Pro that has VMWare Fusion installed.

Remove the following registry entry, reboot, and you're done.

Note that you can also export the entry so that it can be easily imported back into the registry if needed at a alter time.

[staffochi]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this. I'm setting up another use like this today and I'll take note of the services to be disabled, although the new post about the reg key may be even easier. - Rich