Windows 7 Poor Printing Performance Compared to Vista – Fix Available

Microsoft is helping customers that upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7 and then came across poor performance when printing documents from the new platform.

The Redmond company has acknowledged the existence of the issue, revealing that it also affects Windows Server 2008 R2, and not just Windows 7.

While overall, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deliver superior performance compared to their predecessors, Vista and Windows Server 2008, printing is one scenario in which customers can run into problems.

“On a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, the printing performance may be poor compared to the performance on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008,” Microsoft explained.

“Additionally, a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 consumes more CPU resources when you print a document.”

One way for users to see whether they are affected by this specific problem is to check what the load on the processor is when they’re printing documents in Windows 7, especially if they feel like the speed has deteriorated after upgrading from Vista.

“For example, CPU usage remains at 100 percent for a long time in Task Manager when you print a document on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2,” the software giant explained.

Microsoft has identified the source of the problem, and noted that it is most likely for customers with single-CPU machines to come across it.

“This issue occurs because of a performance regression in spooler behavior on single-processor systems that are running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2,” the company said.

For the time being, Microsoft is offering a hotfix designed to help affected customers deal with the problem. However, the company stressed that the fix is only intended for this specific issue and that users not experiencing any problems should not deploy it.