Win XP Pro forgot my printer 1

[Lammbock]

Ive got an older Epson printer which worked fine some days ago. But out of nowhere I cant print anymore. Windows does not show the printer (as well as other network-printers) on the start->settings->printer page.
The wizard for installing a new printer does not open and installing a new usb-printer suddenly stops.

I guess there is a simple answer but i have no idea! Thanks!

 

[jrbarnett]

Go to the services control panel (start -> run -> services.msc then click OK)

Find the Print Spooler service then click start.

Your printers should then reappear.

John

 

[Lammbock]

It was running. I tried restarting but WinXP could not close it. Any idea? Thanks anyway.

 

[Lammbock]

I got error 1053

 

[bcastner]

Is the printer by any chance a Network printer, perhaps on a Win98 workstation?

If so, I think the machine that is sharing the printer is losing network communications for the device. You might Google this one. A common cause was having the wrong version of spool32.dll. Network printers then "disappear" under Win98.

 

[Lammbock]

No. Its not a network-printer. It is connected to the pc. The start->settings->printer page is completely empty (absolutely no icon there) and installing new printers does not work!

 

[dazzer01]

Have you tried seeing if the printer is already installed right click 'my comp.'/ properties/hardware/device manager/view/show hidden devices. you may get some idea of a driver or hardware problem here!

 

[bcastner]

Lammbock,

I still think the problem is a wrong or corrupted version of spool32.

Google 'win98+printer+disappear'

 

[dazzer01]

If you are running 98, then run Sfc from the start menu, and use the replace option, to install the fresh .dll ..any help?

 

[Lammbock]

@ dazzer01: the device-manager shows a USB-Controller with a question mark. I just disabled the device.

@ bcastner: I googled, but the did not help, their problems are all different from mine.

And: I am running XP Pro. And hell, I dont want to reinstall!!!

Also: thanks for your time, I greatly appreciate that!

 

[Lammbock]

bcastner, you were right when you assumed, that Ive got some spool32 problem. I manage two other WinXP PCs and searched the three windows directories for "spool". The result: The Pc with the probs missed the spoolss.dll in the system32 directory.

I took the file from another PC and now I can print again.

God bless you all!

Ive no idea how the file could vanish, though...

 

[dazzer01]

About your q,mark usb controller.
This points toward your m'board drivers, if you have the disk, re run the install, it should search for installed components and let you re-install only for the usb.
OR.. you have altered your bios settings, and perhaps turned off usb support/ usb legacy..etc.
OR... in light of your missing spool' you may have inadvertantly deleted a core usb driver, if running XP find it in device manager, right click it/ properties/ roll back driver. it may, I said may! revert to the original and correct driver!... good luck!