I am trying to replace my Windows Server 2003R2 print server. But when I try to print over a VPN connection to a network printer it slows to a crawl taking up to 5 minutes. When I print to the old print server it works without issue.  So there is something in the configuration of the Windows Server 2012R2 or a memory leak of sort. 

Any

what client? The default communication to the spooler service is TCP over async RPC on 2012R2 when the client is Windows 7. With 2003 the default is SMB using named pipes in the Server service.

I have no clue on your specific configuration, it's nothing I have seen.  Providing additional details may correlate with someone else's configuration.

I'm sorry Alan but I'm not quite sure what you mean by client. We use almost exclusively Windows 7 on our desktops. We use the Cisco anyConnect VPN client. Is this what you mean by configuration? We are using a default print server config on 2012R2.

Matt, the more information you provide the more likely we find solution. Some more infrastructure info would be helpful. Is this workgroup or active direktory. It may be wrongly configured - something like DNS etc.

It is very hard to guess what is happening in your system if we do not "see" it. In addition to this some diagnostics data may help too - errors in event. log.

Also printing log file are helpful

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/13308.troubleshooting-windows-server-2012-printing.aspx

If nothing helps then use "low level" network monitor to dig into communication.

M.