Word 2010 - "Connecting to printer" message when opening documents at Server 2008 R2 Terminal server

Question

Our users experience sometimes the message "connecting to printer" while they open a document in Word 2010 (32-bit) on our Server 2008 R2 Terminal Server. This is behavior
isn't consequent but random. The default printer in this environment is a Net2Printer-printerdriver (1.16) which redirects the print jobs (in PDF-format) to the local client's default printer. This feature works well. We don't want to change the default printer
because this is the right one to use by our users.
After a long seeking trip on the internet I've found the Microsoft hotfix KB974991 which can fix this issue for Word 2007. My question is, is this also usable for Word
2010 (32-bit) and if not, is there maybe another fix for the 2010 version available?
Any other suggestions or workarounds are welcome!

Answer 1

Hi,
Please change following options test if it works:
Ÿ  
Print proofs quickly
Enable the Draft output option. When you use this option, the document prints with minimal formatting. Therefore, the document
may print faster. This option is ideal for printing proofs.
To enable the Draft output option, follow these steps. 
Note Some printers may not support this option.
Start Word.
Click File, and then click
Word Options.
In the Word Options dialog box, click Advanced, and then scroll down to the Printing
section.
Click to select the Use draft quality check box, and then click OK.
Ÿ  
Use the background printing option that best fits your requirements
When background printing is enabled, you can continue to work in Word while your document prints in the background. Background printing uses additional
memory, and your document may print more slowly. 
When background printing is disabled, your document prints faster. However you cannot work in Word until the print job is completed. If you do not have
to continue to work in Word while your document prints, disable background printing to speed up printing. 
To do this, follow these steps:
Start Word.
Click File, and then click
Word Options.
In the Word Options dialog box, click Advanced, and then scroll down to the Printing
section.
Click to clear the Print in background check box, and then click OK.
Best regards
William Zhou
TechNet Community Support