HP Laserjet 1100 drivers & Windows 7 update not compatible!?

After initially working fine on Windows 7 64-bit for several months my old HP Laserjet 1100 stopped working all of a sudden 3 months ago for good. Since then I have been trying various methods to get it up and running again & getting nowhere. It seems to be a common theme that people's old 1100 seems to work fine for the first few months & then it stops being able to print for no apparent reason.

Then earlier today I found a lone thread from a very old forum where someone with the same issue figured out that his 1100 stopped working just after a particular Windows Update (he didn't specify the offending update). Apparently he deleted all the updates from that day & behold! He got his printer to work again!!

This is the only person I have found out there who seems to have genuinely solved this problem. My issue is that because so much time has elapsed since my 1100 stopped working I have had literally 100's of Windows Updates since then & have no way of knowing which update caused the HP1100 driver to crash. So now I know what has caused the problem but I am still left with a non-working printer and it seems many others out there have the same problem.

Additionally, since the printer stopped working when I unplug & plug its USB from the computer there is now no familiar "ding" noise. In my search to fix the problem I uninstalled (removed) the HP1100 from my computer & now I cannot reinstall it because it won't recognise that the 1100 is plugged in.

Would love to get it up & running again as it is a fantastic workhorse & after all these years still has nothing wrong with it. If anyone has any answers would really appreciate it. Many thanx!

Marascus said:

After initially working fine on Windows 7 64-bit for several months my old HP Laserjet 1100 stopped working all of a sudden 3 months ago for good. Since then I have been trying various methods to get it up and running again & getting nowhere. It seems to be a common theme that people's old 1100 seems to work fine for the first few months & then it stops being able to print for no apparent reason.

Then earlier today I found a lone thread from a very old forum where someone with the same issue figured out that his 1100 stopped working just after a particular Windows Update (he didn't specify the offending update). Apparently he deleted all the updates from that day & behold! He got his printer to work again!!

This is the only person I have found out there who seems to have genuinely solved this problem. My issue is that because so much time has elapsed since my 1100 stopped working I have had literally 100's of Windows Updates since then & have no way of knowing which update caused the HP1100 driver to crash. So now I know what has caused the problem but I am still left with a non-working printer and it seems many others out there have the same problem.

Additionally, since the printer stopped working when I unplug & plug its USB from the computer there is now no familiar "ding" noise. In my search to fix the problem I uninstalled (removed) the HP1100 from my computer & now I cannot reinstall it because it won't recognise that the 1100 is plugged in.

Would love to get it up & running again as it is a fantastic workhorse & after all these years still has nothing wrong with it. If anyone has any answers would really appreciate it. Many thanx!

It sounds to me like Windows Update installed a new driver for it and if so, then that driver is bad. So I recommend trying to find any updates that were just a driver for the printer and then uninstalling that update.

Additionally (but not instead of the above), I recommend opening Device Manager and looking for the printer. If you find it, then right-click it and uninstall it but also enable the option to uninstall the software too before clicking OK.

I also recommend opening the Device Installation Settings control panel by opening the Start Menu and typing "device i" and then pressing Enter. Or type device installation settings and press Enter. Once it is opened, copy these settings:



I also recommend changing the Windows Update setting to "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them".

Hi. Thanks for your thoughts.

Someone mentioned yesterday that if I have had a few windows updates that failed around the time the printer stopped working then that might also be a cause of the problem. And indeed there were a couple that failed several months back. At the time I attempted to reinstall them again & again, as the updates were apparently very important. Unfortunately these updates kept on failing to install & I can't think of a way to get them installed successfully. So if that could be a cause for this issue then I am open to any & all suggestions, but right now I've hit a brick wall with that.
Also, unfortunately my computer can no longer "recognise" the printer. When this problem occurred I decided to uninstall the HP1100 with the intention of reinstalling it again to see if that would get it up and running. The problem is since the printer stopped printing Windows 7 does not recognise the printer even when I unplug & plug it in again. As I mentioned there is no "ding-dong" sound when I plug and unplug the USB. The drivers for my HP1100 apparently come as part of windows 7 (there are no drivers for it on the HP website anymore because of this) & windows is supposed to recognise when it is plugged in & install the drivers automatically. But because the computer no longer recognises the printer, probably due to a dodgy windows update, then I can no longer reinstall the printer.

I should say that even after the printer suddenly stopped being able to print when I actually checked my 'printing devices' in windows the computer still said the HP1100 was working properly (even though it clearly wasn't)

Thanks a heap for taking the time to reply & if yourself or anyone else has any further thoughts I am all ears.

Well, I'm stumped.

The computer and printer get turned off at the wall every night. But I hadn't tried turning the printer on & off while the computer was on until just a minute ago. Did the unplug/plug thing too & still no joy. Same old. No change to my anti-virus software or firewalls since this issue arose. Have used Norton since October last year & my printer was happily printing back then. It only stopped being able to print around February this year (although there is nothing at all wrong with the printer itself). One day I woke up & it just wouldn't print. The print jobs were all lined up to go but they couldn't seem to talk to my printer anymore.
The only suspicious occurrence I can think of around the time of the printer stopping is that there were a couple of windows updates that failed to install (only time this has ever happened to me) & no matter how many times I tried to reinstall they kept on failing for some reason - Apparently they were very important updates too according to Windows. The other day in another forum someone mentioned that updates failing to install could be the cause of this problem (this was before I even told them about my own updates failing) & my gut feeling is that the solution probably lies in that direction - drivers/updates, etc. But having said that I still don't know how to persuade those pesky updates to install properly.
As I've mentioned earlier I've discovered there are a lot of others out there with exactly the same experience as myself; i.e. HP1100 printer (or other old HP printer) initially worked fine on Windows 7 for about the first 3 months then mysteriously lost the ability to print. So if anyone is able to solve this I'm sure there will be a small cheer heard around the globe. One person put 2 and 2 together immediately & deleted some windows updates that were automatically installed at the same time his printer stopped & got his old HP to work again. He didn't specify which update & I've just had too many auto updates since the printer stopped to go around deleting them willy-nilly without knowing what I'm looking for. Wish I'd have seen his post a few months sooner!
Thanks again for all everyone's ideas on the subject but if anyone has any info on which are the offending updates I would be most interested to learn more. Still frustrated, but much obliged for all input!