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Printer is not recognized as installed

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trevor01

Programmer
Jan 19, 2002
4
US
I have windows 98. I have installed and uninstalled an EPSON 700 series printer numerous times. When I use an applications print function they report "No active printer" message. I have checked the printer icon and it is marked as default. Why is it not 'seen' as installed?
 
Go into the application and choose print setup option. There make sure the printer is listed (and set as default.) Some apps don't talk to prtmgr correctly, they need to be told which print manually.

Alex
 
also right click on the printer in the printer properties and make sure it is not clicked on work offline.
 
It might be helpful to know what application you are trying to print from if the above suggestions do not work.

Also, try printing a test page from the printer. This will confirm that your OS can communicate with it and let you focus your efforts on figuring out why the app will not.
 
Thank you all for the input. I have done quite a few things so I will answer your questions.

Crisc
1) I can not print a test page. It does not find a printer. I also get an Rundll32 exception error.

grygst76
2)It is not marked work offline

3) All apps, word, excell, IE, notepad. When I go to page setup nane of them 'see' a printer. So setup stops.

More History

This began when I was using W95. It started with Spool32 errors. Then this printer problem. Lexmark Z22.

I upgraded, not re-image, to W98 Second eddition. I removed the Lexmark and am trying to install an EPSON Stylus 740.

I used the System tools | system information utility and found that the LPT1 port was marked as 'unavailable' or something like that. I went through the steps to make it 'active'. I rebooted and still the same problem.

Anymore Ideas? Willing to try all.
 
Time to FDISK and reinstall Win98 I think. There is a corrupt .dll that came from somewhere...

Alex
 
Did the Epson printer come with it's own setup disk that you have to run to set it up? Or did you try mapping it using the "New Printer" applet in the Printer control panel? Try doing it both ways if you haven't already...
 
If you originally found in Win95 that there was a problem with the LPT1 port, upgrading that 95 installation to 98 wasn't a solution... it just carried your problem forward (as you can see) It really doesn't make a difference what printer you install, if Windows is having a problem with the LPT port, then THAT is what you need to fix, not an "Add a new printer" session and not anything from an application.

As AlexIT said, there very well might be a corrupt DLL, but it doesn't sound to me like you've concentrated on trying to fix the problem with the LPT port, so, although reinstalling Windows from scratch would likely take care of it (unless it's a hardware, or BIOS controlled problem, in which case it won't) I think the reinstallation idea is overkill at this point until we figure out where the problem is coming from.

Right click on "Mt Computer" and select PROPERTIES... Click on the DEVICE MANAGER tab. Are there any devices that have yellow exclamation points over top of them? If so, highlight those devices and click on PROPERTIES to find out whats wrong... If you don't specifically see any yellow exclamation points, specifically open the "PORTS" heading and look at the properties of the LPT port and see what the status is. Does it say it's working properly???

Maybe it has something to do with your print cable or a bi-directional setting in BIOS. Have you tried going into the system BIOS and setting the bi-directional port to another option? Have you verified that the printer cable is good?

Just afew thoughts... Post back some more information and I'll try to make further suggestions.
 
MISAdmin - Using the properties from the My Computer... It shows up as working proberly. The cabels were working on another computer. I installed the printer on my laptop and it works fine.

From both the 'my computer' and in system tools - system resources menu - exe is MSINFO32.exe. LPT1 is listed as the EPSON 740 printer. One of the information tabs on printing shows 'no default printer'. Yet the EPSON printer icon is set to 'default'.

How do I check the BIOS?

to AlexIT - I have the origional W95 CD. I purchased the W98 upgrade CD. Here are my questions.

I used partition majic on a 2gig harddrive years ago. If I am going to reinstall ALL software I would like to get rid of the partitions also. I have the partition magic CD but I lost the 'key'. If I need that to get rid of the partitions then I will work on that.

Again - Thanks for all of the help. I jave learned alot debugging this.
 
Thanks for all of your help.

I went to Microsoft and read a printer tip on the win.ini file marked as read only. That was the case. Here is what I did to fix the problem.
1) Unmark win.ini read only
2) Uninstall the printer software
3) reboot
4) re-install printer software
5) reboot
and viola`

Thanks - Trevor01
 
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