Solved Can't get my printer to work. It is in working order.

[Stevekir]

After a clean re-install of Windows Home Premium by my computer shop who built my comp. 11 months ago), everything else works OK except printing. The printer worked perfectly a week ago (6 months old Canon MG 6650). I have always simply opened a doc. in Notepad or MS Word (or Photshop etc.), typed something and done File > Print and its is printed. Now, I get tangled in a loop with OneNote which I don't want to use. Here is what happens:

In Notepad
1. I start up the comp., open a Notepad text file, do File > Print. In the Print D. box I am offered "Send to OneNote", "Fax" and "Micrsoft XPS Document Writer" (also "Add Printer"). All are described as "Ready". If I choose "Send to Onenote 2013". I press Print at the bottom and OneNote opens but there is no way to print. (I don't want Onenote.)

Instead, I D. click Add Printer. A D. box appears with two options: "Add local printer". On D. clicking on this this I get "Use this option only of you don't have a USB printer. (Windows automatically installs USB printers when you plug them in.)" The other option involves a network printer - (I am not on a network).

Back to the Print D. box I press "Find Printer" and all I get is the name of my comp. and if I select it I get "No items match your search." If instead of choosing Add Printer I choose Fax or Microsoft XPS Document Writer, all three buttons are dark (active).

In Word 2013
3. At an early stage, when starting to print in Word, I got a message like "Sorry, you need to print to OneNote first." So I tried that: Word > File > Print. The previous three print options are offered, all labelled "Ready" so I choose "Send to OneNote", press the Print button. OneNote opens with the text displayed but again no option to print. I don't want OneNote.

4. In Word 2013 with a simple text file (open) I do File > Print. Under the Printer button, a dropdown offers "Send to OneNote", "Fax" or "Microsoft XPS Document Writer", all three labelled "Ready". Also in that dropdown list I click on Add Printer. I get "The Active Directory Domain Services is not currently available" and a D. box "Find Printers" but all options buttons or fields a non-reactive.

The printer is plugged in to a USB socket as usual and switched on. It works on my Imac. Early on in this present saga I was offered to install a printer driver but it said that Windows will always find a USB printer driver (presumably automatically). So that was no help. When I set this printer up 6 months ago it found the driver and got to work.

So how can I get the thing to work please? Hope someone can nail it.

A thought: As my iMac is retired but working, I set up this printer on it while the Windows machine was having W7 clean re-installed. Worked fine. Then, after my Windows 7 machine returned, I found this above problem. Could it be that the printer still has the Mac printer driver and Windows is confused? However, it previously had the W. driver on it and the iMac managed to install the Mac driver over it. If that is the explanation, how to scour the iMac driver from the printer?

(Whew! It doesn't half bite into a working day investigatin this and drafting all this accurately and clearly.)

 

[oscer1]

Hi I would uninstal everything pertain to the printer in programs and features. And uninstal driver in device manager and then reinstall the printer.

 

[Stevekir]

Hi I would uninstal everything pertain to the printer in programs and features. And uninstall driver in device manager and then reinstall the printer.

I spent hours going through the Canon and Microsoft on-line advice on how to re-install the driver: 5 different methods. Eventually I rang Canon and, after a second call I was given instructions on how to download the driver manually from their site. It worked. It took several stages (automatically) and it became obvious that all the earlier attempts got nowhere near downloading and installing. Happy now.

 

[oscer1]

Glad you got it sorted