Can't open or create MS Access 2003 reports with default printer

M

manfrema

I have a 2003 Access database that has multiple reports. I could not create
or open any reports unless I set the default printer to ImageMaker. I could
then at least open the reports in design mode. I could then specify a
particular printer and print.

I was told that changing the default printer and back again would help but
it did not.

At the advice of a friend, I was able to copy the binary value from
DevModePerUser to the default printer and it worked; but I did not understand
why it worked or how the problem occured in the first place. Can anyone shed
some light on why MS Access could not open the reports and why a reg hack was
necessary.

Thanks!
 
J

Jeff Boyce

Don't know about the reg hack, but do know that not have any default printer
defined for a PC has caused strange report definition/printing issues.
 
M

manfrema

The strange thing is that this database had been working for over 1 year on
the same PC on the same network with the same printers with the same OS. Why
would moving from Access XP to Access 2003 cause so many problems with
printing reports? How did the registry edit that I invoked fix the problem?
It seems a little odd that this would be necessary. We have approximately
3800 PC's on this network almost all of them running Office XP, this is the
third time this issue has come up and all three of them were upgraded to
Office 2003. Searching the web turns up quite a few hits on this topic but
nobody seems to have a definitive answer as to the root cause or have
documented fixes that work across the board... I had one person tell me that
I needed to copy the binary value data for the printer from
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Printers/DevModes2/ to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Printers/Connections/<printername>
Another said
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Printers/DevModePerUser/ to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Printers/Connections/<printername>

Either way it seems that copying the value to the printer seems to solve the
problem. I don't know if it is right but the reports open and print.....

Any more help on this subject would be appreciated. If more information
from my end would be helpful I would be willing to supply what I know.

Thank you for responding...
 
M

manfrema

I have seen a ton of folks state that this issue has something to do with the
deafult printer and I don't doubt that for a second.

The problem is that the default printer can be set at various permission
levels. Additionally, policies may also play roles in this mystery.

I have removed printers, defaulted back to image writer, (which does allow
one to at least open the reports) re-added the network printers, set the
re-added printers as the default, tried several methods of saving the user
profile information back to the server, and the problem still persists until
a manual registry change is made..

Does anyone out there really KNOW what is going on with this? I saw a
response today that said this question comes up at least once a week. I
wonder what that equates to on a global scale. I am guessing that this is a
problem that Microsoft will need to address.

It is small stuff like this that makes organizations like mine skip
releases, sometimes we skip two or more due to not wanting to deal with stuff
that breaks.
 
M

manfrema

Jeff said:
Add my name to the list. Not only can I not view or print any reports,
I can't open Print Setup, Print Preview, or Print at all in Access
2003. This is a pretty serious problem and should not require registry
edits to resolve. Luckily I still have systems with the older versions
of Access that still work.
Click to expand...
 
M

manfrema

I think it may have something to do with the following article. Q188697
I think the registry is hold registry key information.
It seems that starting and stopping the spooler may be key.
I am finding more and more computers that are having problems.
I am going to keep trying to figure out what is happening with default
drivers and Access.
Has anyone heard a difinitive answer as to the root cause of this
problem.
 
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