Issue installing printers in Windows 7 64bit

[nesrinamb]

I got a Laptop in the shop that is having issues with printers.

One printer got "uninstalled" (malfunctioned) for some reason and the client attempted to reinstall without first fully uninstalling the printer drivers. Now the printer just has a troubleshoot button and a few other options but the option to remove is not their.

The issue is the computer as I tried installing a different printer and it simply shows up as not recognized even with the right drivers(checked plenty of times, but will check again).

Already checked print spooler service.

Already tried device manger as well as the brother MFC removal tool and it still shows up and other printers won't install. Also went into the registry and I couldn't find anything pertaining to it. any ideas? Or questions?

Brother mfc8460n

 

[altrenda]

Did you try this?
Type this in the search field: "printmanagement.msc" and see if you can uninstall from there.

 

[Doc+Com]

I've seen this when a print job was left on the spooler. Try the command;
'Net stop spooler' and reboot.
If this doesn't work, you may need to reinstall the printer software/drivers, make sure there's no pending print jobs and then try uninstalling.

 

[HFultzjr]

Make sure all aspects of other printer is removed (ALL). EVERYTHING RELATED TO IT.

Try Revo Uninstaller with moderate configuration setting!

Run Ccleaner, then do a registry clean-up with Ccleaner. Yeah, yeah, I know about Reg cleaners, but I've had good results with this one. I only use it in special situations, as I'm not a big fan of Reg cleaners. Make sure to save a backup of the registry when prompted.

Then do a fresh install.

 

[nesrinamb]

@altrenda

haven't tried that will give it a shot can't believe it skipped my mind.

@Doc+Com

Have already attempted to stop the spooler and it stopped but no luck. Will recheck to make sure their is not anything I missed.

@HFultzjr

Ok thanks didn't think of running the reg cleaner but at this point will go for it.

Ok guys thanks for the help if all else fails I'm just going to have to nuke and pave.

Luckily all the client has on his computer is word and excel, nothing else is an issue although he does have a bunch of toolbars so might as well pull the info and give him a nice error free PC.

 

[jbartlett323]

@altrenda

haven't tried that will give it a shot can't believe it skipped my mind.

@Doc+Com

Have already attempted to stop the spooler and it stopped but no luck. Will recheck to make sure their is not anything I missed.

@HFultzjr

Ok thanks didn't think of running the reg cleaner but at this point will go for it.

Ok guys thanks for the help if all else fails I'm just going to have to nuke and pave.

Luckily all the client has on his computer is word and excel, nothing else is an issue although he does have a bunch of toolbars so might as well pull the info and give him a nice error free PC.

Just Nuke and Pave the printer, not the whole machine! unless ya really want to....

net stop spooler (or stop the "print spooler" from the services.msc if you perfer the graphical like me )
go to C:\windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS, delete everything inside this dir to clear any spooled docs.
Restart spooler service, see if life is happy... No?
Then re-stop the service, navigate back to C:\windows\system32\spool
Backup the "drivers" directory just in case, then delete everything out of it.
restart spooler service, Printer WILL now be gone, as you just deleted all recollection the system has of it, and any other printers installed on this system
Reinstall all printers from square Zero.

*note: this will get rid of the printer, not any corrupt drivers. however in my experience it is typically an issue with the printer setup, not the actual driver files.... YMMV

 

[CompConfig]

What about doing a system restore to the point before the messed up uninstall and then uninstall the printer correctly.

 

[FremontPC]

Thousand -

What's the basic health of the laptop? Have you checked the HDD with Crystal Disk Info to see if there are any "sectors pending reallocation"? You'll get some really odd symptoms if so. System finds the sector writable, but can't read the data back.

Aside from what others have covered, check to see if it's running Intel Matrix or Intel RST. I've seen some of the weirdest problems come out of outdated/corrupt installations of those drivers. Last one was Windows Update wouldn't launch and when downloading via IE, you would get the Run, Save dialog, but the buttons were dead. Chrome and Firefox were fine.

Uninstall Intel Matrix, let Win7 install it's own drivers and all is well.

But check the SMART report with Crystal Disk Info first. Not the SMART short/long test, the actual SMART report stored in the drive.

 

[Bubbajoe]

printui /s /t2

 

[nesrinamb]

@jbartlett323

Already tried it before I posted first post and nothing

@CompConfig

System restore is not working (hmmm)

@Bubbajoe

Tried it before I posted first post

@FremontPC

hmmmm I did not look at it because the computer in terms of speed was fine even with some junkware in it. Will run it tomorrow and see the status of the drive. (it was fine just a month ago when I was their looking at an email issue but then again this is a laptop so I should not have assumed)

 

[nesrinamb]

Ok so just a quick update to everyone that provided me with some help.

I did all the stuff that was suggested and nothing so I ended up just reinstalling. Luckily their was a hidden recovery partition on the system so it was a matter of just pulling the info and adding all the extra programs. Thanks to everyone for their help.

 

[altrenda]

Glad you got it sorted out. These kind of things upset me, because we think we should know why things don't work and how to fix them. And I worry that they will come back.