Windows 7: Devices and Printers won't load - sometimes

My Devices and Printers won't load - most of the time. (When it isn't going to load, I get the green bar that goes on and on and on - and nothing happens.) If it doesn't load, I can't use the printer with my laptop. I have tried restarting the computer. Often, if I do this 2 or 3 times, the devices and printers will load and everything is fine. However, sometimes it won't. I need to fix this. It is extremely frustrating to take up to 30 minutes to start my computer with everything working.

I have read previous posts and have checked the Bluetooth setting. It has been set to automatic. I have tried resetting the Bluetooth setting, changing the setting and then resetting it - nothing is working.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 Intel Core2Duo CPU T250 @ 2.00 GHZ 2.00GHZ
2.00GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit

This is just a recent problem. I have been having this problem for a month or so and am becoming very frustrated. Many thanks, in advance, for any help.

Hello muppie. Welcome to the forum.

The green bar is Windows looking for and discovering devices in your system. If it is hanging on discovery that strongly indicates a failed/failing device, corrupted driver, or conflicting drivers.

Can you take a look in your Device Manager and see if any devices show a yellow (!) symbol?

Thanks for your reply - I checked and no yellow symbols.

Your next step would be to try and isolate which device is causing the problem.

You can do that by disabling one device at a time and testing by opening the Devices & Printers.

But you may want to start with the printer in question.
In Devices & Printers, right click on the printer and "Remove Device".

If the printer does not seem to be the issue, add it back by selecting "Add A Printer" from the top of Devices & Printers window and follow the prompts to reinstall it. (It is not necessary to reinstall the drivers).

Thanks for the help. I will try that.