MS-DOS Application Prints Incomplete Pages

ID: Q101850

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows NT operating system, version 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

All MS-DOS application printing is done through the Windows NT spooler system. In order to know when to send a job to the spooler, there is a time-out on the printer port. Once something has been printed to the port, if this time-out passes with no more data presented to the port, the print job is sent to the spooler. On a slow computer running a complex calculation to produce the print job, it is possible that the time-out can expire during this calculation. This will cause the printout to appear over multiple pages instead of a complete page. To solve this problem, increase the time-out. Change the registry setting to the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WOW\LPT_timeout
The default value is 15 seconds.

Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords : kbprint ntprint ntdosap NTSrvWkst
Version : :; WINDOWS:2000; winnt:3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform : WINDOWS winnt
Issue type :


Last Reviewed: January 21, 2000
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