Shared printer is recognized and connected, but not printing


  1. Posts : 76
    Windows 7 Ultimate X64
       #1

    Shared printer is recognized and connected, but not printing


    I have an OKI laser printer that's USB connected to a Win7 Ultimate desktop computer. This is shared with a Windows XP desktop and two other Win7 laptops (Lenovo). The Lenovos are dual boot (7 + XP) but used primarily on 7. I'm not really sure whether this is the best section to post this issue, since it could be something other than a network and sharing issue. I've done this sort of thing several times over and never encountered the problem described below.

    The XP computer can see the shared printer and print to it with no problem.

    One of the two Lenovos (Win 7 Pro 64-bit) can access the printer with no problems. When I used Devices and Printers - add new printer it found it, went to fetch a driver from Windows Update and it worked within minutes.

    The second (wife's) Lenovo is proving very problematic. Using the XP OS I was able to install and run the shared printer after installing the OKI driver and it works perfectly. However it's not playing ball at all trying to install and run it from Windows 7 (Home Premium 32-bit) that I am trying to persuade my wife to use.

    Starting from "Install new printer" it found it immediately and I proceeded to set it up. The first surprise is that it spent some time in Windows Update but ended up saying it couldn't find a driver. (Odd, since the other Lenovo found one in seconds and installed it).

    So I downloaded the driver from OKI, pointed it to the INF file and within seconds its said it had been correctly installed. Indeed the Printer Preferences box came up and all looked just fine. Then I came to print. All looked OK from the computer (printer showed "ready") - Word's progress bar whizzed across the screen and there were no error messages. But no print either

    The printer queue showed "spooling" - for ages and it clearly wasn't going anywhere. Couldn't delete the queue either - so went through the usual procedure of stopping and starting the spooler service. But oddly, when I went into System32/Spool/Printer the offending file was not there (on the Lenovo) but it was on the Spool/Printer of the computer the printer is attached to so I stopped its spooler service and deleted from there.

    But whatever I do I get the same result - nothing reaches the printer. (If I go back into XP mode on the same Lenovo, it still works fine).

    When I look at the printer properties on the two Lenovos, they look absolutely identical. Same driver, same ports etc. I've tried Microsoft's "Fix-it" but to no avail.

    I'm now completely stumped and my 72 year old head has lost a lot of hair this last two days Wife not impressed either!!

    Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

    Kind regards

    John
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 2,298
    Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 ; Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
       #2

    Have you tried a system restore to a point before the printer install? I have a feeling this is a bad driver however I may not be correct.

    System Restore

    Also does the driver from OKI support Windows 7? Just because it supports XP doesn't mean it will support 7.

    Josh :)
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 8,870
    Windows 7 Ult, Windows 8.1 Pro,
       #3

    johngee said:
    I have an OKI laser printer that's USB connected to a Win7 Ultimate desktop computer. This is shared with a Windows XP desktop and two other Win7 laptops (Lenovo). The Lenovos are dual boot (7 + XP) but used primarily on 7. I'm not really sure whether this is the best section to post this issue, since it could be something other than a network and sharing issue. I've done this sort of thing several times over and never encountered the problem described below.

    The XP computer can see the shared printer and print to it with no problem.

    One of the two Lenovos (Win 7 Pro 64-bit) can access the printer with no problems. When I used Devices and Printers - add new printer it found it, went to fetch a driver from Windows Update and it worked within minutes.

    The second (wife's) Lenovo is proving very problematic. Using the XP OS I was able to install and run the shared printer after installing the OKI driver and it works perfectly. However it's not playing ball at all trying to install and run it from Windows 7 (Home Premium 32-bit) that I am trying to persuade my wife to use.

    Starting from "Install new printer" it found it immediately and I proceeded to set it up. The first surprise is that it spent some time in Windows Update but ended up saying it couldn't find a driver. (Odd, since the other Lenovo found one in seconds and installed it).

    So I downloaded the driver from OKI, pointed it to the INF file and within seconds its said it had been correctly installed. Indeed the Printer Preferences box came up and all looked just fine. Then I came to print. All looked OK from the computer (printer showed "ready") - Word's progress bar whizzed across the screen and there were no error messages. But no print either

    The printer queue showed "spooling" - for ages and it clearly wasn't going anywhere. Couldn't delete the queue either - so went through the usual procedure of stopping and starting the spooler service. But oddly, when I went into System32/Spool/Printer the offending file was not there (on the Lenovo) but it was on the Spool/Printer of the computer the printer is attached to so I stopped its spooler service and deleted from there.

    But whatever I do I get the same result - nothing reaches the printer. (If I go back into XP mode on the same Lenovo, it still works fine).

    When I look at the printer properties on the two Lenovos, they look absolutely identical. Same driver, same ports etc. I've tried Microsoft's "Fix-it" but to no avail.

    I'm now completely stumped and my 72 year old head has lost a lot of hair this last two days Wife not impressed either!!

    Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

    Kind regards

    John
    I'm not sure of the model number but there are a few tricks to installing the correct driver according to this Windows link. Maybe some good suggestions starting 4 posts down the page.

    Driver for the Oki C5500 printer on Windows 7 64Bit - Microsoft Community
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 76
    Windows 7 Ultimate X64
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Shadowjk said:
    Have you tried a system restore to a point before the printer install? I have a feeling this is a bad driver however I may not be correct.

    System Restore

    Also does the driver from OKI support Windows 7? Just because it supports XP doesn't mean it will support 7.

    Josh :)
    Allegedly the same driver is used across all flavours of Windows (according to OKI website) but I will check with them. And I can print to it from two of the three Win7 computers with that driver anyway.

    As far as restore point goes, I may not be able to do that because (as I understand) in a dual boot machine going back into XP destroys the restore points in 7. I haven't actually looked yet. However I've got rid of all the driver "dregs" using OKI's own removal tool.

    It's still a puzzle why Windows itself couldn't find a driver, since it had done so when I installed this printer on the other Lenovo/Win 7.
      My Computer


 

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