Printer Drivers

[Nige]

Hi,

I am running Windows XP Professional Edition and use a Canon MP600 printer.
The printer works OK but calling up the 'Properties' page for the printer
takes nearly one minute.

I also have a fax, XPS Document Writer, SagePDFPrinter and Send To OneNote
2007 drivers installed and the 'Properties' dialog box for these appears
within a couple of seconds.

Why would the appearance of the 'Properties' box for the Canon take so long?

Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Nige

 

[Paul]

Hi,

I am running Windows XP Professional Edition and use a Canon MP600 printer.
The printer works OK but calling up the 'Properties' page for the printer
takes nearly one minute.

I also have a fax, XPS Document Writer, SagePDFPrinter and Send To OneNote
2007 drivers installed and the 'Properties' dialog box for these appears
within a couple of seconds.

Why would the appearance of the 'Properties' box for the Canon take so long?

Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Nige

If you use control-alt-delete and bring up Task Manager, do you see
any new processes starting when you select Properties ? Maybe some
bloated software is started, when you select properties. The
Task Manager may show a bit about what is going on. Also look at
CPU utilization, to see if something is really busy, or there is
some kind of "timeout" operation at work (like checking the network
for your printer or something).

The second possibility, is communications problems over the USB
cable. Try plugging the printer into a USB port on the back of
the computer. Sometimes the signal quality of the back connectors
is better than the flaky ones on the front panel of the computer.
If they cut corners on the wires used for the front panel, sometimes
this results in USB packet loss.

You can use a utility like this one, to view a USB connected device. The
X86 version should be good for 32 bit windows. Handy when you have the
odd hardware problem with USB, for detecting whether the hardware is
really there or not. I'm using this archived version of the page,
because the original page has gone missing.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070516...com/whdc/device/stream/vidcap/UVCViewdwn.mspx

Paul

 

[Nige]

Thanks for that Paul.

I have tried another USB port but it makes no difference.

When I select 'Properties', Task Manager indicates that 'explorer.exe' uses
up to 50% of CPU time for the next 45 seconds or so.

Then decided to connect a laptop to my network and found that selecting the
'Properties' for the printer from there it appeared almost immediately so
that would rule out any connection from my desktop PC to the printer. It
appears the culprit must be on board my desktop PC.

Have now unloaded all 'start-up' software eg ZoneAlarm etc and still the
long delay so 'explorer' looks more and more the problem!

Cheers,
Nige