Epson 1290 can't print from Win7 x64

[Nick Payne]

I recently installed Win7 Home Premium x64 on my desktop PC, which is dual boot with Linux. My printer is an Epson 1290 – old now but prints without any problem from Linux when I'm booted into that. Windows 7 recognized the printer during installation, as I had it powered up, and and installed it as "Epson Stylus Photo 1290 (M)". However, any print I send to it from any app, including the "Print test page" from the printer properties dialog, goes to the print queue, then disappears from there, but nothing prints out and the printer never gives any indication of having received anything (the green ready LED normally blinks when the printer is receiving data). There's also nothing in the Windows event logs to indicate any problem with printing or with the printer. Windows can actually see the printer, as it tells me that it's ready, I can get the printing preferences dialog Main tab to show me the ink levels in the printer when I click on "Get ink levels", and from the Maintenance tab of the dialog the "print head alignment" option does actually print out the alignment check pages ok on the oprinter, but attempting to send a normal print from any application just seems to result in the print disappearing into the bit bucket. As I mentioned above, I can boot into Linux and print without any problem, so it doesn't seem that there's any problem with the printer hardware or with the interface to the PC, but the problem lies in Windows somewhere. Any suggestions on a fix?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Nick try downloading the driver again Epson Stylus Photo 1290 : Drivers & Software (only one I could find)

If that doesn't work run these

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

 

[Nick Payne]

Thanks. I removed the driver that had been automatically installed by Windows 7 and downloaded and installed the WinXP x64 driver from the Epson web site. No joy - same behaviour as before. I also ran sfc /verifyonly from an elevated command prompt and it didn't find any problem or errors.

As another test I plugged the 1290 printer into my laptop, which is running Windows 8.1 x64, and let the OS automatically install a driver. Once the driver was installed I was able to print from the laptop no problem at all.

I have a Windows 8 upgrade for the desktop machine on order, as Windows 7 Home Premium can only use half of the 32Gb RAM in the machine (it was a lot cheaper to purchase a Windows 8 upgrade than to purchase an upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Pro). When the upgrade arrives I'll make sure the printer is powered off, remove all drivers for it, install the upgrade (and then 8.1), and then power the printer on and see if it will function with the driver that gets installed.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok mate cos that is exactly what I did with this laptop and my Sandy Bridge. The 8.1 was a free update if you are interested.
This is the stuff you should know Update to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8 - Microsoft Windows
Be careful where you get it from though and again I got it for free so keep that in mind. If you run into strife go to the 8 forum - same folks in there as here - I am and just join up.

I run my 8.1's in 7 style using this Start Menu - Restore in Windows 8