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I'm fixing a printer over at a friends house, that has ceased to work with her computer. It's a Lexmark Z715, and wasn't working previously when I tried to get it working.

I uninstalled the printer driver and attempted to reinstall it using the Lxk700 drivers for Windows XP.

When I attempted to re-install the Lxk700 driver, at the end of the installation I received the following error: "The RPC server is unavailable"

After checking in System Services (Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services) and noting that the "Print Spooler" service was stopped, I tried to start it and it said that one of the services dependencies was not running.

I immediately thought of the error message "The RPC server is unavailable" and noticed that the "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)" service was a dependency of the "Print Spooler".

I checked the "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)" service and noticed that it was running, and that additionally the "Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator" service was running as well.

I tried to start the "Print Spooler" service from the command line using the command "net start spooler" and got the error "system error 1068 has occured"

I repaired this error by looking at this thread and this other thread by running the command "del /Q /F /S "C:Windows\System32\Spool\Printers*.*"

And editing the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL _MACHINE\System\Current Control Set\Services\Spooler\DependOnService

Which looked like this:

LexBces RPCSS

and now looks like this:

RPCSS

I restarted the computer, I can start the print spooler just fine now.

And now I get the following error when installing the print driver:

"The specified print monitor is unknown"

UPDATE I got my VM with an old (but vanilla) copy of Windows XP installed on it. I couldn't get procmon working or any of the sofware suggested installed because it's only running sp0 (ie no service packs). However Regshot appears to work. So I took a Regshot before I installed the driver, and I took a Regshot after I installed the driver and then listed the comparison listed below:

(Paste-bin of changes: http://pastebin.com/VEJhMXde)

So I now am wondering if there is an easier way to remove these keys than just looking for all 647 of them. Is there some type of utility that will take a list of the keys and remove them?

fixer1234
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leeand00
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1 Answers1

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Yes , there is a way to remove the registry items based on the list you have . A Minus sign in front of the key will remove it.

Just put in a minus sign in front of the key in the .Reg file, then import that reg file in. 

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU]

Like this, The minus sign tells it to Remove the item instead of add it. I dont remember why the [ ] braces are used or if that is nessisary.

The items that are strictly User based S-1-5-21-1715567821-688789844-1343024091-1003 Will not be the same on a different computer, because of the ID of the user will likely be different. but it is not a big problem

Your still going to want a backup, and might have to be somewhat selective on removal. I have only used the minus sign when I want to completly tear something out. soo, I dont know if you can JUST put it in front of all the items in the reg list there and do that.

Psycogeek
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