DYMO label printers failing

[thefourthwall]

Hello,

Several (40-50) users in our organization use DYMO label printers. When we were running Windows XP, there was practically never any problem or failure with them. Since moving to Windows 7 however, we see about one a week appear to fail. By "fail" I mean that the printer appears to have stopped responding to PC input. When I move the USB cable to another port on the PC, instead of an "Installing Device" pop-up near the notifications area, a "USB device not recognized" displays.
To troubleshoot this, I have:

1)removed the print device from Devices & Printers, then
2)removed the driver package via Print Server, then
3)removed the software via Programs and Features.
4)Next I have removed the DYMO entry in the registry from HKLM/Software/Dymo and HKLM/Software/Wow6432Node and from HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print/Environments//Windows x64/Drivers/Version-3
5)and removed the DYMO folders from C:\ProgramData and C:\Program Files (x86)
6)and finally, restarted the PC

At this point, after reinstalling the DYMO software ver 8.5.1, and then reconnecting the DYMO printer, the average success rate has been about 40%.

If I connect a brand-new DYMO printer to the user's PC, the thing works beautifully, but not the original unit.

However - if I take the original unit and plug it into a completely different PC that has the DYMO software installed, the original unit is almost 100% likely to work like a charm.

I believe I am missing something in my troubleshooting - like registry entries pertaining to the hardware ID of the original DYMO, but I am genuinely perplexed.

Your thoughts & suggestions are welcome.

 

[cdogg]

What model are the DYMO printers?

Some of the older ones are flaky, as you've seen, and if they're too old, they're not supported in Windows 7.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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[Rick998]

Try uninstalling the Dymo printer(s) using Nir Sofer's USBDeview.

I use this whenever my Win 7 PC stops recognising my phone. In my opinion it's a bug in Windows 7, i.e. that repeated connections of the same USB device often end up with the device no longer being recognised. USBDeview has fixed this time and time again.

 

[xwb]

You could also install the drivers in XP mode then it will be available in W7 but using the XP drivers. This works quite well for older hardware for which there are no W7 drivers.

 

[cdogg]

xwb,
Really? I was always under the assumption that you had to have Win7 compatible drivers. Are you saying you were able to get XP drivers working in Win7? I'd be curious to know on what kind of hardware this worked for you.



-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

[tab][navy]For this site's posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[edfair]

I've had good results with XP drivers on 7 on a bunch of Dell GX270 and other Dell stuff of the same age. No 7 drivers available for them. Not intuitive on how to get them loaded but it is through device manager and using older drivers.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[xwb]

cdogg it was for a Canon N670U scanner. It was just way too old to have any W7 drivers but I installed the XP drivers in XP mode. I was quite surprised that I could use it in W7.

 

[cdogg]

Interesting. Good to know.