Windows 7: Printer problems print button grayed out - test print page fails

Hi, I just purchased an used computer with Windows 7Home Premium x64, this is an HP Slimline s5610f. The problem that I have is with a Brother HL 2040 series printer. It gave me a really hard time to install the drivers that I downloaded from the Brother website I kept getting a "0x00000057" error and "could not find suitable driver for this printer" error. Finally I decided to take the driver folders for this printer from my wife's computer and copied them to my computer and put them in the drivers repository under System32 and was able to install the printer after that with no problems.

The problem that I have right now is that the printer won't print, even though it told me that the driver installation was successful.

1-the print button is grayed out
2-If I click "printer properties" it tells me that the drivers have not been installed and asks if I want to install them.
3-If I install the drivers at this prompt it tells me that the drivers have been successfully installed.
4-Now it lets me access the printer properties but when I click "print test page" either nothing happens or it tells me that it failed to print and access is denied
5-If i close printer properties and try to access it again it tells me that the printer drivers have not been installed.

I get the same results with the printer connected locally trough USB or on another computer through the network.
All the other computers in the house print to this printer without a problem through the network.
The printer server is running Ubuntu 12.04
It seems like a permission problem.

Thanks, I appreciate any help that I can receive on this.

Manuel Rivas

Hello and welcome Manuel. Now probably too obvious mate but is the printer showing up ticked as the default device in Printers and Devices? while 7 is up and running?.

Thank you,
no, it's not marked as the default printer, would that make a difference?
I'll test it when I get home, to see if that is the problem.

Manuel

Suggests a driver problem to me try it gain mate as it wouldn't be the first time initial driver installs have failed.

I used the same driver to install this printer on my laptop, on my wife's laptop and my son's laptop, all running Windows 7 and they have no problem. Also, every time I click on "Printer Properties" it says that the printer driver is not installed and I have to install it again; so I have installed the driver about ten times now and it always does the same. I have used the Windows 7 driver, the Windows Vista, the XP driver and the Windows Update driver and I always get the same result.

I will try a few more tricks when I get home and see what I get and post back.

Thanks for your help.

Ok, I solved it; here is what I did:

1-System Restore to a point previous to first attempt at installing this printer.
2-Copy the printer drivers folder from my wife's laptop to my computer in folder C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\
3-Download the drivers from Brother.com
4-Install as a network printer. I did not let windows try to detect it, I typed the server's ip address, port and printer name
5-Clicked "Have disk" and used the downloaded drivers at the prompt.
6-Installation successful.
7-Print test page failed with message "Error-printing"
8-Reboot
9-From this point everything works fine so far.

Thaks for your help