Symptoms

When printing from a Vista computer to a shared computer, you notice the following:

• Printing takes a long time to begin.
• Opening the Print dialog (e.g. in Word) takes a long time.
• Selecting printers in the Print dialog is slow.

Cause

The real reason is unknown, but Vista seems to have a problem with excessive querying of the printer. Along with the usual slowdowns of network traffic, this causes serious slowdowns.

Solution

The trick is to have Vista believe it is dealing with a local printer, rather than a shared printer. This is done by specifying a Local printer port, pointing to the share, then configure the printer on that port:

1. Open Printers, and then Server Properties.
2. Select the Ports tab, and choose to add a new local port.
3. In the box, type in the UNC path to the printer: e.g. \\myserver\myprinter.
4. The port is now added.

Next up, we need to configure the printer. If your printer driver is already installed or known to Windows, you can add it without too much trouble:

1. Choose Add new printer, and select Local printer.
2. When asked to select a port, choose the newly added port: e.g. \\myserver\myprinter.
3. Select the correct driver, or choose Have disk and select it there.
4. Continue on, like you normally would. The printer will be installed locally, and thus, allows to change various properties as well; something you could not do with a real shared printer.