Cannot use Add Printer Wizard

[Guest]

All of my printers are gone in Printers and Faxes, and I cannot add a
printer, using the wizard. When I click on it, nothing happens. I checked
the windows directory for any foreign .dll's, but they are only the 3 windows
dll's. The spool directory looks normal. I can print from the office suite,
but not from IE. The printers show up in those programs. Any ideas besides
reloading XP.

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

The spooler service probably stopped. See this page:

http://www.coribright.com/windows/Article_Nine.htm
My printers have all disappeared from the Control Panel, Printers & Faxes

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

The MS Office suite uses its own custom printer dialogs, so when you can
print from there but not IE (or for example, Notepad), this usually
indicates a mismatch (incompatibility) between the locally installed driver
and the driver on the print server.

 

[Guest]

Hal and Bruce,
Thank you for your replies. I did check the print spooler and it was
running. I had even stopped and started it a few times, but to no avail. I
ran the system file checker "C:\sfc /SCANNOW and it did not resolve my
problem immediately, but upon reboot, the printers were back in the control
panel. The problem started when I installed a 48" scanner and it had drivers
that were not microsoft certified. The manufacturer claimed they work fine.
After the printers can back up, I hooked up the scanner again, I know I have
a high pain tolerance, to see what happened. Well, it installed just fine
with uncertified drivers, and shows up in scanners and cameras now. Before
it would just show up in the hardware in system properties. Anyway,
everything works fine again. Thanks.