Microsoft has provided a temporary fix for Windows 10 blue screen flaws that affected customers during printing after installing the March 2021 cumulative updates.
Redmond confirmed the known issue that causes Windows 10 BSOD crashes after BleepingComputer reported a wave of user complaints about system crashes during printing.
After installing updates released during this patch Tuesday, “you may receive an APC_INDEX_MISMATCH error with a blue screen when trying to print to certain printers in some applications,” explained Microsoft.
“We are working to resolve an issue that affects a subset of customers who use certain printers,” a Microsoft spokesman told BleepingComputer.
Platforms affected by Windows 10 BSOD failures include the following client and server versions running cumulative updates from March 2021:
- KB5000802: Windows 10 2004 / 20H2 and Windows Server 2004 / 20H2
- KB5000808: Windows 10 1909 and Windows Server 1909
- KB5000822: Windows 10 1809 and Windows Server 2019
- KB5000809: Windows 10 1803 and Windows Server 1803
According to Microsoft, this issue “affects a subset of Type 3 printer drivers and does not affect Type 4 printer drivers”. Use the steps available here to find the type of printer driver installed on your system.
According to user reports, the printer brands affected by this known issue include Kyocera, Ricoh and Dymo.
“I am the technical support manager for KYOCERA printers in my country,” said a user on March 12, three days after the updates were released.
“We received hundreds of calls from customers whose computers hang after an update to KB5000802.”
Official workaround available
While Microsoft is investigating crash problems and working on an update, you can uninstall the offending updates by following the steps outlined here to restore printing functionality and get rid of blue screen errors.
However, if you do not want to remove security updates deployed with the cumulative updates for March, you can use an official interim fix provided by Microsoft to mitigate the problem.
Although Microsoft provides a video detailing the workaround instructions, we also detail the steps below the embedded video.
To print from 32-bit applications (for example, Acrobat, OpenOffice) on 64-bit versions of Windows without crashing, Microsoft recommends enabling Direct Printing for your printer using the following procedure:
- Open an elevated command prompt and run the following command to find out if the feature is already enabled (replace PRINTERNAME with the name of your printer):
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Xg /n PRINTERNAME
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If direct printing is not enabled, run the following command at the same elevated command prompt (replace PRINTERNAME with the name of your printer):
To print from 64-bit applications on the 64-bit operating system or using 32-bit applications on the 32-bit operating system, you must download and install the Application Compatibility Toolkit to apply the PrinterIsolationAware patch to affected applications using the Compatibility Administrator tool.