I’m frustrated, so very frustrated. I’ve owned an HP Laserjet 1000 since ’03 and I love it. It’s been one of the best printers I’ve ever owned. I have it for the bulk of my printing, which is almost always just text. I also own a Canon iP6700, which I only use occasionally whenever I need to print a photo or a document in color.
The LJ 1000 has been a reliable printer under Windows 2000, which I used until the end of ’04 and under Windows XP Professional, which I’ve used from ’04 till the present. My problems with the LJ 1000 started a couple months ago when I moved. The printer works great still. However, its driver keeps disappearing. I keep having to reinstall it over and over. I set the LJ 1000 as my default printer. I’ll go to hit the print command in Word only to find the LJ 1000 missing. The “Quicken PDF Printer” is listed in its place as the default printer. When I pull down the list of printers, the LJ 1000 is missing while the Canon 6700 is still available. It’s the same result whether I’m printing from Word or if I pull up the list of printers from the Windows XP Control Panel.
I’ve reinstalled this printer over and over. In fact, I got so tired of getting out its CD, I copied the CD’s install files into a directory on my external hard drive that I used for backup. I have noticed some curious details.
1. When I run the LJ 1000 driver install program, it always first says it’s uninstalling the print driver. Then I run it again to reinstall and the printer works for a while.
2. I set the Canon printer as the default one to see if it would be the one whose driver got deleted. Didn’t happen. When I went to print, the Canon was still there as the default, but the LJ 1000 was again missing.
3. I accidentally installed the LJ 1000 driver a second time when it was already installed. That resulted in an additional listing as “HP Laserjet 1000 (copy 1).” I figured that maybe if the regular driver got wiped from the list, the copy 1 would still be there. Didn’t happen. They both vanished. Then when I reinstalled once, both the regular listing and the copy 1 came back.
4. The loss of the printer listing seems to happen after a reboot, bot not always. If Windows has acted buggy and I rebooted as a result, the printer listing is almost always gone. For example, Wordpad got buggy and wouldn't save and then crashed. When I rebooted, the printer listing was gone.
There’s one thing that’s different from when this problem wasn’t happening. The LJ 1000 is farther from my desk than it was before the move. As a result, I’ve been using a USB extension cable that extends it about another 6 or 10 feet, I don’t remember which. However, this isn’t the first time I’ve used the extension cable. I used it before when I ran the LJ 1000 under Windows 2000 and never had any such problems.
I recently found a rootkit on my PC. I detected it with Webroot Spysweeper, although my regular anti-virus program didn’t detect it. Webroot was unable to kill the rootkit, so I did an Acronis restore of my operating system back to February of 2007, then reinstalled my applications. (Acronis is like Norton Ghost.) That killed off the rootkit, which I hoped would finally solve my LJ 1000 problems. No luck. The printer keeps disappearing from the list of printers.
I’ve done extensive virus, rootkit, and spyware scans that have revealed this computer is clean. The problem seems to reveal itself after reboots.
Anyone know what’s going on here and how I can stop from having to reinstall this driver a zillion times? I can’t see how a USB extension cable could be causing my problems. Is there a file in Windows that stores the list of what printers are installed? If that’s the case, I could easily write a little program that restores it whenever Windows reboots.
If anyone has any ideas, I’m all ears. Thanks.
The LJ 1000 has been a reliable printer under Windows 2000, which I used until the end of ’04 and under Windows XP Professional, which I’ve used from ’04 till the present. My problems with the LJ 1000 started a couple months ago when I moved. The printer works great still. However, its driver keeps disappearing. I keep having to reinstall it over and over. I set the LJ 1000 as my default printer. I’ll go to hit the print command in Word only to find the LJ 1000 missing. The “Quicken PDF Printer” is listed in its place as the default printer. When I pull down the list of printers, the LJ 1000 is missing while the Canon 6700 is still available. It’s the same result whether I’m printing from Word or if I pull up the list of printers from the Windows XP Control Panel.
I’ve reinstalled this printer over and over. In fact, I got so tired of getting out its CD, I copied the CD’s install files into a directory on my external hard drive that I used for backup. I have noticed some curious details.
1. When I run the LJ 1000 driver install program, it always first says it’s uninstalling the print driver. Then I run it again to reinstall and the printer works for a while.
2. I set the Canon printer as the default one to see if it would be the one whose driver got deleted. Didn’t happen. When I went to print, the Canon was still there as the default, but the LJ 1000 was again missing.
3. I accidentally installed the LJ 1000 driver a second time when it was already installed. That resulted in an additional listing as “HP Laserjet 1000 (copy 1).” I figured that maybe if the regular driver got wiped from the list, the copy 1 would still be there. Didn’t happen. They both vanished. Then when I reinstalled once, both the regular listing and the copy 1 came back.
4. The loss of the printer listing seems to happen after a reboot, bot not always. If Windows has acted buggy and I rebooted as a result, the printer listing is almost always gone. For example, Wordpad got buggy and wouldn't save and then crashed. When I rebooted, the printer listing was gone.
There’s one thing that’s different from when this problem wasn’t happening. The LJ 1000 is farther from my desk than it was before the move. As a result, I’ve been using a USB extension cable that extends it about another 6 or 10 feet, I don’t remember which. However, this isn’t the first time I’ve used the extension cable. I used it before when I ran the LJ 1000 under Windows 2000 and never had any such problems.
I recently found a rootkit on my PC. I detected it with Webroot Spysweeper, although my regular anti-virus program didn’t detect it. Webroot was unable to kill the rootkit, so I did an Acronis restore of my operating system back to February of 2007, then reinstalled my applications. (Acronis is like Norton Ghost.) That killed off the rootkit, which I hoped would finally solve my LJ 1000 problems. No luck. The printer keeps disappearing from the list of printers.
I’ve done extensive virus, rootkit, and spyware scans that have revealed this computer is clean. The problem seems to reveal itself after reboots.
Anyone know what’s going on here and how I can stop from having to reinstall this driver a zillion times? I can’t see how a USB extension cable could be causing my problems. Is there a file in Windows that stores the list of what printers are installed? If that’s the case, I could easily write a little program that restores it whenever Windows reboots.
If anyone has any ideas, I’m all ears. Thanks.
