Description: This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Print Spooler. The most severe vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected server received a specially crafted RPC request. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect networks from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter. Best practices recommend that systems that are connected to the Internet have a minimal number of ports exposed. The update addresses the vulnerabilities by changing the way the print spooler parses certain printing data structures, limiting the location where separator pages or embedded files can be read by the Windows Printing Service, and restricting the paths from which the print spooler can load a DLL. Keep reading →

You cannot print from any program, and you may receive any of the following error messages when you try to print a document:

System error 1068 has occurred.
The dependency service or group failed to start.
Spooler SubSystem App has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Operation could not be completed. The print spooler service is not running.

On a computer that is running Windows Vista or a later version of Windows, when you try to establish a connection to an Internet printer, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

Windows cannot connect to the printer. Check the printer name and try again. If this is a network printer, make sure that the printer is turned on, and that the printer address is correct.

On a Windows Vista Service Pack 1-based computer or a Windows Server 2008-based computer, handle leaks and memory leaks occur on the Printer Spooler service if the computer installs and uninstalls network printers. You may find that the handle usage and memory usage of the spoolsv.exe process keeps increasing.

Note: You can use Windows Task Manager or the Performance Monitor utility to verify this issue. The “More Information” section provides steps to verify the issue by using Windows Task Manager.

For example, if you have a Windows Server 2008-based terminal server, the handle leaks and the memory leaks occur when clients that have redirected printers log on and log off the terminal server. When the client logon and logoff events occur many times, and the Printer Spooler service has not restarted, the computer may start to respond slowly.

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Server 2008-based print server.
• This print server has many Windows Vista-based printer clients.

In this scenario, the memory usage of the Print Spooler service increases over time. For example, assume that you have several thousand printer clients that connect to the print server. Eventually, the print server becomes unresponsive, and you must restart the server to recover from this problem.

Consider the following scenario. You are running a Windows Vista-based computer. On this computer, you install a Web Services for Devices (WSD) printer. However, about 30 minutes after you install the WSD printer driver, the Print Spooler process (Spoolsv.exe) crashes.

In Windows Vista, when you restart a printer after you change its device configuration, the changes are not applied until the Print Spooler service restarts. For example, the changes are not applied until the computer restarts.

This problem occurs if the printer driver is based on Web Services on Devices (WSD). This problem occurs only if you make the changes while the printer is turned off.