Make Printers available to Windows Services

Owned by John Bellos (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jan 25, 2022 by Andrea El-Urfali (Unlicensed)

In many systems, the installed printers are not available to the Windows Local System Account. This is not an issue until you set DVMAX Server to run as a service. When DVMAX runs as a service, it runs under the Local System Account, and thus has no access to PDFCreator - a critical driver needed to create PDFs in the DVMAX application.

To correct this, follow these steps to make printers available to windows services.

Step 1: Download Batch file to your DVMAX Server computer

  • Download this file and save it onto your Desktop.
  • Unzip the file, resulting in a .bat file.


Step 2: Execute Batch File and follow prompted directions


  • Unzip the downloaded file.
  • Right click the downloaded pdfCreator_serviceFix.bat and choose 'Run as Administrator'.
  • A command prompt window will open informing you of 3 text files that have been created.
  • Navigate to the C:\ and open each file one at a time.
  • Change the contents of the text file for each instance:
Replace: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\
With: HKEY_USERS\.Default\
  • Double check your changes to ensure all characters are typed correctly, including periods and slashes.
  • Save your changes and close the document.
  • On the command prompt window, Press any key to continue.
  • A status indicating the the operation was successful should appear for each text file modified.
  • Press any key to close the command prompt window.

If DVMAX Server is currently running, quit and relaunch the service.
PDFs should now work correctly when DVMAX Server runs as a service.