Default printer not coming up

[alansecker]

My friend's Windows 7 laptop has an HP printer connected and set as the default.
He also has a pdf writer (CutePdf) installed

However, whenever he goes to print it is always CutePdf that shows up in the selection dialog. How can this be fixed?

 

[Maguscreed]

start menu -> devices and printers -> right click the printer and select set as default printer.

The pdf application made its writer default when it was installed. Microsoft office document writer does the same thing sometimes.

 

[alansecker]

I had already stated the the (real) printer had been set as the default and still is but cutepdf still pops up.I'm afraid the above advice is not the answer to this problem.

 

[Maguscreed]

Well the other possiblity is to take the same action and choose remove device for the offending virtual printer.
This may interfere with the functionality of the pdf application.

I actually suggest using foxit pdf instead unless there is some specific reason for using the other one. foxit is free, functional and doesn't suffer from many of the security exploits found in some other pdf readers.

 

[Ambimom]

Remove Cute PDF and reinstall. See if that fixes it. If not, remove Cute PDF and install PDF Creator instead, an open source PDF writer with many more features than Cute PDF.

@Maguscreed: Cute PDF and PDF Creator are not readers; they create PDFs, which the free version of Foxit cannot.

FYI, open source (free) PDF Creator does all that the paid Foxit does, except read PDFs.

I also remind folks that open source OpenOffice has built-in creation, reading, and manipulation of PDFs.

 

[alansecker]

I'll try it. Thank you both. AS