Okay, this a fairly new one as I cannot find a single documented instance of this on the entire internet.....

Hardware - T60 thinkpad
OS - WinXP
512MB RAM
Accessories - Docking station

I've deployed about a hundred of these things and this is the first time I've seen this message.....(not verbatim)

"The undocking sequence cannot continue because the print spool service needs to be stopped."

???????

Fair enough, but I can't tell my user to keep going into the computer management services to turn the service on and off. My boss would kill me.

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? My final resort would be to re-image the thing (as also suggested by IBM themselves). The problem is that would be a major hassle as this guy is an attorney and always on the run.

Any and all suggestions will be entertained....even the ones involving alchemy.

Disconnect the printer, and then what happens?

this is a network issue. Your administrator needs to clear the print spooler. Either you or someone else attempted to print to a printer that wasn't networked, turned on, or working. The computer has lost connection to the printer in the network . Since you do not have admin rights, you cannot print nor remove the computer from the docking.

AFAIK you can just hot-undock the newer ThinkPads (unless you are writing to an external hard drive attaxched to the dock or sth similarily obvious). No need for any software procedures.

Ohhhh.....not this monster. The T60 has a tendency to freeze/break down/fry the motherboard when you hot dock it. Had more problems with it than any of the T40 series.

Next time I talk to him, I'll have him try disconnecting the printer from the replicator before running the undock sequence.