One to Watch Out for: A Stopped Print Spooler Service Crashes Windows Server 2012 R2's Server Manager

With Microsoft having signed-off on Windows Server 2012 R2 and its release scheduled for October 18, 2013, it's not a great time to hear that an issue has been identified that could affect some customers right away. The issue is truly a domino effect where several things have to be active for the issue to occur. However, it's good to be aware of, in the event your company uses a regular practice of stopping or disabling the Print Spooler Service.

The steps to reproduce the problem go like this:

The way Microsoft explains it, the reason why the console crashes is due to how Windows Server 2012 R2 tries to utilize "Color Management" to display icons. And, since the color profiles directory is located underneath the main printer spooler file directory, the Print Spooler Service being shutdown causes an access issue.

Read the full post here: Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Manager Crashes when clicking on Local Computer

Just something to be aware of.

There has been no communicated workaround yet, except for simply ensuring that the Print Spooler Service is running.