Windows 95 Causes Spooler to Approach 100 Percent CPU Usage

• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

Under certain conditions, when Microsoft Windows 95 clients submit a large number of print jobs to a computer running Windows NT Server, the CPU usage of the print spooler process will approach 100 percent.

Also, all other connected Windows 95 clients appear to stop responding (hang) as well as the server itself. When the number of jobs drops below the threshhold, the server will free up and all clients will return to normal.

A network trace between the client and server will show a constant stream of remote procedure call (RPC) traffic. The number of jobs that will expose the problem is variable, and has been observed to be as low as 88 (all the documents in the queue have extremely long names and the queue is being shared by Windows NT Server) or as high as 141 (all the documents in the queue have single character names and the queue is being shared by Windows NT Workstation).

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the following fix or wait for the next Windows NT service pack.

This fix should have the following time stamp:

   04/01/98  10:21pm             88,226  xactsrv.dll (Intel)
   04/01/98  10:22pm            170,768  xactsrv.dll (Alpha) 

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0.

A supported fix is now available, but has not been fully regression-tested and should be applied only to systems experiencing this specific problem. Unless you are severely impacted by this specific problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Service Pack that contains this fix. Contact Microsoft Technical Support for more information.

Additional query words: win95

Keywords          : 
Version           : WinNT:4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        : kbbug 

Last Reviewed: February 4, 1999