Okay here's a run down of the situation. Got a Server 2003 domain. Got 3 servers, 2 are domain controllers. One of the domain controllers runs Server 2003 Standard SP2 the other R2. The one running Standard lets call "labserver" the one running r2 lets call "server2003". labserver shares out all the printers. Server2003 pushes the printers to the machines via group policy and print management(feature of R2). This is a school. There are several labs. All the students use a mandatory profile. All the lab machines are cloned exactly alike. Here's my problem. Sometimes when the students try to print it says that the printers aren't installed correctly. Basically that there isn't a driver installed for the printer. Even though it's being pushed VIA startup with group policy. But here's the kicker, it doesn't happen to every student. Just random ones at random times. Everyone will be able to print just fine for days and then all of a sudden printing problems. Does anyone have any ideas? Please help.

"All the lab machines are cloned exactly alike"

I would suspect that all machines have the same SID [security identifier]. Normally in a Domain this is not an issue like it would be if in a workgroup. SID duplication can reveal itself in some very strange ways which is what made me think of it.

I would also wonder if something was getting stomped on between the GPO and the mandatory profiles. When you get the error can the user browse/see the printer?

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

They don't have the same SID. I used sysprep before I created the image.

There is a log on script that runs after the GPO but all it does is map 3 drives.
The error comes when the user is say, printing a word document. It'll come back with an error saying that this printer is not setup correctly. So you try a different printer and the same thing happens. Then you go into the printers and right click and go to properties and try to print a test page and it says this page failed to print.

When you meet this problem those it happen in one machine at the time, only in one, or in all of them at the same time?. Have you tried using the same user that is logged with the problem simultaneously in another computer? Have you chequed the spooler process and the GDI object/ restarting services?

Yff@D@ffY

It's random machines. A reboot of the machines fixes the problem. Print spooler is not stopped. The users don't have "access" to start and stop the print spooler. Nothing in the event viewer on the machines or the server.