Windows 7: Programs / Windows Explorer stop responding whenever I hit "print"

A colleague of mine using the 64bit version of Windows 7 Enterprise has been having this problem for the past day or so. No matter what program he's using, as soon as he clicks print, the program stops responding. This even happens if you try to print a test page - Windows Explorer stops responding. It's not printer specific, since this happens before you have the option to select a printer (and he has several, one local printer and a few network printers). I've tried running the troubleshooting tool, but all that does is restart the print spooler, which doesn't stop the problem. Any ideas?

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

These may help:

Support for Windows Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, and 9

Unable to print or view the print preview of a webpage in Internet Explorer

Hi,

The problem isn't in Internet Explorer, it's Windows Explorer, and all programs in Windows 7.

Sorry about that - I'm just off to Specsavers to get my eyesight checked!

No worries, it's an easy mistake to make

Have you found a solution to this problem. I'm experiencing the same issue.

Yes, I did find the issue. The printer specific driver (HP P2035) is incompatible with Windows 7. You have to install the HP Universal Print driver (PCL 5, I believe) and after that, click "Add a printer" and manually in the HP 2035 driver on top of that. This will create two print queues for the same printer, just set the 2035 driver as the default print queue.

Hope that answers your question - not sure if you're using the same printer, but if not it may be a similar issue.

Thanks for the quick response. I have a Ricoh SPC430dn and switching from the Ricoh PCL 6 driver to the Gestetner PCL 6 driver (porvided on the Ricoh website) indeed fixed my problem! Thanks again!