HP LaserJet 1020 Spooler Service Restart

UPDATE: The following procedure did not work for very long. See the new procedure.
If you are sharing an HP LaserJet 1020 USB printer over a network, and you have problems printing to it without restarting the print spooler service on the “server” machine (like people here, here and here are having), I found a solution that works for me. Maybe it will work for you too.

Quick Fix

Put the user who is printing to said printer over the network into the “Print Operators” group. If that doesn’t work (or you aren’t on an Active Directory domain – i.e. most users), try setting the security on the printer so that “Everyone” has “Print”, “Manage Printers”, and “Manage Documents” allowed. (Open up Printers/Faxes, Right click the printer, hit properties, hit the Security tab, select “Everyone”, put checkmarks in all the “Allow” boxes, hit OK.)
It may not be the most secure policy, but it sure beats buying another printer and then waiting around for the printer to get there. I find it makes a good “crutch” solution in a pinch.

Reason

The print driver on the 1020 is HOST based, not PCL based. The problem I was having was that anyone who was not an Administrator would trigger the issue. I surmise that the HOST based driver requires a certain level of permissions from the user in order to fire off the job properly. Weird, but now solved.

HP LJ 1020 Spooler Service Restart Revisited

My previous fix for the HP LaserJet 1020 Spooler Service Restart issue did not stick. Upon reboot of the server, the problem returned and was not correctable in the manner previously described.
I researched the issue again and found a Microsoft forum post where they actually fixed the issue. The fix goes as follows:

• NOTE: Do this on the machine connected to the printer.
• Run gpdedit.msc
• Go to “Local Computer Policies\Administrative Templates\Printers”
  • Set the setting “Allow print spooler to accept client connections” to “Enabled”
• Go to “User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Printers\”
  • Set the setting “Point and Print Restrictions” to “Disabled”
• Close the Group Policy Editor
• Go into the Printers and Faxes control panel, right click on the printer and hit properties.
• Click the “Ports” tab
• Uncheck “Enable Bidirectional Printing”
• Close the Printer panels/windows
• Run a command line, type in “gpupdate /force”, and hit enter

Fixed!
The forum fix was here.

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Unchecked ENABLE DIRECTIONAL SUPPORT - Printing from XP WORKS!