TOPIC:

After experiencing this and spending some time with Windbg, it came down to this:

When BigIDE loads, some component related to printing (LazPrint?), tries to enumerate the available printer drivers in the system.
This works fine, but the component also tries to "open" the default printer. If this printer is offline (i.e not connected to the computer or not reachable), BigIDE hangs.
This behaviour is related to the Windows architecture used, i.e if you're using x86_64 then the 64-bit BigIDE crashes, not the 32-bit one.

The workaround to this issue is to make sure that the default Windows printer selected is ALWAYS available. This is of course not possible with real printers, so a virtual one is needed. I've used PDFCreator and after setting it to be the default printer, everything works fine.

I have a bad feeling that the same thing happens not just to BigIDE, but to applications using these printing components; unfortunately, my Pascal knowledge is limited in order to write a test program to verify this case.

Hi Μάνο,

I will try to test your theory later today. i will also write a test program using both 32 and 64 bit environments (my win though is a 64 bit one).
While reading your post it snapped to me that i also have a virtual printer (bullzip) as the default printer in my system. My real printer is a Network printer and as you can imagine is not always powered on.
The other think that also crossed my mind is the your problem might coming from a printer that is physically connected on your pc. But later we will know.

Kostas

Unfortunately i couldn't reproduce the error on my system. Maybe because my printer is a network printer and windows do not see it as offline.

That's strange. Mine is a network printer too (Lexmark Pro705) and the problem appears when the printer is not turned on.
The exact error condition is: offline DEFAULT printer (network or not).