Photoshop lags opening files when your default printer is a network printer

At home and at work I’ve had this problem where Photoshop freezes for about 60 seconds whenever I go to open a file (7 at home; CS2 at work–both versions do it). Even a tiny 32×32 pixel file will lag opening. After my tenth productivity hang today I finally decided to track the problem down, and it’s not at all what I would have suspected: network printers. If your default printer is a network printer Photoshop will take longer to open files. And if your PC can’t connect to the printer for whatever reason it takes even longer. I frequently turn my network printer off at home, and at work I’ve got a ton of network printer profiles I don’t even use anymore, the default one being invalid. The workaround for me is to make my default printer at home a FILE: printer. Lame.

I don’t entirely blame Photoshop on this… even the Printer Control Panel can’t figure out if a printer is connected or not until you go to access it. But couldn’t they push whatever this printer thing is doing into a thread, so at least you can keep working?

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