a problem with a dell photo printer 720

[reble]

I have a Dell Photo Printer 720 on my laptop, os Win7. I have had this problem problem before. The error message is "communication not available, printer can not communicate" When I 1st got the printer. At the time I didn't know it but the software was asking for the type of ink cartridges in the printer. By telling the software the correct type of cartridges that fixed the problem and the printer worked fine until last night. I am agin getting the same error message "communication not available, printer can not communicate" after having to reinstall the printer drivers. I dbl, triple checked the ink cartridge setting in the software I tried uninstalling the printer drivers and made dbl sure that any reference to the printer was removed from the Windows registry. When that is said and done. I plug the printer in and Windows does see the printer and trys to find the drivers in it's internal data base, with no luck. When I install the print drivers from the cd. The install goes as plain to the finsh. But when I try to print anything or a test page I get "communication not available, printer can not communicate". I also tried download the drivers from Dell. No change in the problem. I am stumped. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[A Guy]

Welcome to Seven Forums reble. Assuming you have downloaded the correct driver (a Vista driver installed in compatibility mode?), then you might try something I keep seeing about Enabling Bidirectional Communication. See if your printers Properties has this Ports tab, and if this is enabled.

Start> In search box type Devices and printers> Enter> Right click the Dell printer and choose Properties> Click on Ports tab> Check the box titled Enable Bidirectional Support> OK

See if that helps. A Guy

Edit: Found a link with instructions

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/w/printers/799.aspx