Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

[The Chef]

I have the hp c5200 photosmart printer and Im using it with a laptop to scan images of things for sale, the laptop is running Vista and its an Acer laptop if that makes any difference.

I installed the drivers the first time I set it up but of course with any laptop I turn it off at the end of the night and unplug the usb cable from it, and here is where the problem comes in, when I need to use the printer again the next day and I plug it back in I am forced to reload all of the drivers and install it all over again. Is there something Im not aware of so I wont have to keep installing the printer every single time I want to use it on my laptop? Its really annoying when you want to print one document and you have to spend another 5 minutes installing it all over again, there has to be some sort of workaround or fix for this, it just doesnt make sense that the moment I unplug it that the drivers would completely dissapear from my system. Im tried contacting HP and their website is setup so you cant find your way around it, its like one giant maze that I apparently cant figure out, Ive tried the online live support but it never connects and just sits there, Ive tried asking others and have gotten zero help, you guys are literally my last hope at this point.

I cant possibly be the only one using a printer with a laptop using a usb cable but apparently Im the only one who has experienced this problem since nobody has been able to help to this point. Thanks guys.

[Uhfan]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

jeez that sucks

I have the hp c5280 and it works greats. Maybe it is a Vista compatibility problem.

[untouchable04]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

Yeah I'm pretty sure is a Vista compatibility problem as well. I purchased a new computer during the summer of last year and it came with a Canon printer. The salesman made it a point to tell me to NOT install the software that came with it because it wouldn't be compatible with Vista.

Instead he said to download everything from the Canon website. Maybe you should look into that. See if what you need, for your printer is at the HP website.

[The Chef]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

Im going to try the driver issue, its weird, I installed it again and restarted my computer with the usb cable unplugged and once it booted I went into my printers and it was still listed just greyed out since it wasnt connected, the moment I connected it the printer vanished and went back to installing the drivers all over again, man with technology comes headaches apparently.

EDIT- Well the drivers version available online are 9.0 and according to the disc that came with the printer its 9.0 as well so would there really be any difference to them? Im having my doubts about this printer, I had a standard hp printer before and never had this problem but because I needed the ability to scan I got this and now Im having one problem after another.

[p_rushing]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

Uninstall all the printer drivers, restart, install USB Vista drivers from acer, restart, install Vista printer software, then connect USB when told too. What is happening is it is seeing it as a new port, so for some reason it is now storing it. It may be a USB issue and not the printer.

[Heelfan71]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

did you go to the photo smart website and look for the latest drivers ? The ones that came with the printer may not be the latest ones.

[fishepa]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

Vista sucks.

[The Chef]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

Thanks for the replies guys, I finally got it to work. An HP rep emailed me back tonight and had me make some changes going into services.msc and it seemed to work. I tried the drivers but they were identical to what I had, no problem with the usb itself because everything else worked in it with no problem. Im going to post the fix in case someone else comes across this problem, might as well help anyone I can....

1. Click on the "Start Menu" icon on the bottom left corner of the screen , type "services.msc" in the "Start Search" edit box, and hit enter. This will trigger Vista to pop-up a "User Account Control" dialog to prompt for permission to continue. Click "Continue" to allow Vista to open the Services management console application.
2. The Services management console application is made up of 2 panels. The right panel contains a list of all services available on the system. Scroll through this list and look for a service called "HP CUE Device Discovery Service".
3. Right-click on "HP CUE Device Discovery Service" and select "Properties" to open the "HP CUE Device Discovery Service Properties" dialog.
4. From the "HP CUE Device Discovery Service Properties" dialog, click on the "General" tab. If the "Service status" shows that the service has started, click on the "Stop" button to force the service to stop.
5. Change the "Start type" to "Disabled" and click on the "OK" button on the bottom of the dialog to apply the changes.

Basically I took it to mean that whenever this printer was plugged into something that was already on it would always attempt to load the drivers no matter what, especially considering if I had the printer plugged in prior to turning the laptop on I wouldnt have this problem, doing this basically forced it to stop searching for drivers on my machine and left the previous install intact. I tested it tonight and it worked perfectly.

[Stumbleweed]

Re: Frusterating printer problem and I think you guys are my last hope.

"PC LOAD LETTER? What the fu#$ does that mean?"



Aaaaand, here's your solution: