When I'm off-line and try to print a word document, I get a message saying my printer is idle - "The Active Domain Service is currently unavailble." & my computer cannot communicate with the printer. My OS is Vista.

I checked all my cables, they're OK. I restarted my computer and it's still the same problem. I checked for an up-dated driver & got a message that my current driver is fine. Everything in the Control Panel tells me my printer is working OK.

However, I can go on-line (such as here to GB) and printout a walk-through just fine; printer seems to work OK as long as I'm on-line.

Does anyone know what the Active Domain Service is and what I can do to fix this strange problem? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

What brand is your printer?

Lexmark, model X1270. I've had it for about 3 years and it's never given me any problems until now. It's a very inexpensive model and I use it only for B&W printing. I'm thinking I might have to uninstall it and re-install it, but I hope not.

See if the suggestion in this forum is of any help.
http://www.chicagotech.net/netforums/viewtopic.php?p=3875#3875

Also check ***this thread***.

Thanks Jenny. I'm going to try those suggestions and I'll let you know if they work.

I tried both of those suggestions and didn't have any luck. My printer status still says "idle" if I try to use it off line.

That second link seemed to be an ad to get you to buy a Resistry Booster product. Do you know anything about this product? I did the free scan and, of course, I had tons of errors in my registry. I've never fooled around with the registry and don't know if this is something that needs attention.

The second link should take you to the vistax64.com forum where there was a thread about "Vista - The Active Directory Domain Service is currently unavailable." Several people were having problems with their printers, and a few possible solutions were posted.

I'm not familiar with "Registry Booster" but it seems to be causing problems with popping up ads
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080609051839AATB0je

I don't know if your printer problem is related to the registry, but I wouldn't buy a registry cleaner that just popped up and offered to scan my computer. Nor would I allow it to scan.

Hmmm... the second link took me directly to the Vista forum subject. At the top of the page it tells you to read the forum, but to scan your computer for errors before and after making any changes to the registry. The link takes you to the Registry Booster free scan.

SuMac, ignore that link and read the forum posts below it and see if something will help your problem.

I did let it scan my computer but I'm not buying the product. I also tried the suggestions listed in the forum, but it did not help my printer problem.

After doing some more research on line, it seems like this is not an uncommon problem, especially with people using Vista and Windows 7. They are suddenly finding that their printers are not working and are getting the same error message I did: "the Active Directory Domain Service is currently not available."

so, you can print web pages - but not from word? How many printers do you see defined under word?