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Tech Tips / Windows NT / Printing

Disable the printing notifications

If users dislike being continually notified of the status of network print jobs, you can disable the Printing Notification dialogs that are sent by the Spooler Service when a print job's been completed, deleted, or when there's an error. Note that this setting applies globally to all the printers on a particular print server. It isn't possible to set this option on a per-printer basis.

This setting must be made on the server that's sending the pop-up in order to affect all clients. The only way to disable a pop-up on an individual client is to disable the Messenger Service on that client. Follow these steps to disable the Printing Notification dialog boxes:

1. Click Start | Settings | Printers.
2. Go to File | Server Properties | Advanced.
3. Deselect the Notify When Remote Documents Are Printed check box.
4. Stop and restart the Spooler Service from the Services portion of Control Panel so the new setting will take effect.

Remember, under Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, if the print notification is turned off and the printer is connected by a parallel or serial cable, error messages will appear on the server. While an error is displayed, printing will not resume to the printer, even if the cause of the error is cleared from the printer. Someone must log on to the server and click Retry or Cancel in the Error Message dialog box. This does not affect network-connected printers.