Dell USB Printer

[Michael]

Hello all,

I have a customer who recently bought a Dell along with a Dell printer, which I believe is model 810. It's a standard all in one printer.

I plug in the printer via USB and Windows detects the device but requests drivers. I cancel the wizard, and pop in the driver CD. Half way through the install it asks me to connect the printer, even though it's already connected. Switching it off and back on makes no difference, as does removing the USB lead and plugging it back in. I even tried downloading the latest drivers and have the same problem.

On closer inspection, Windows isn't creating a virtual USB port or USB001 as it's normally labelled, but creates a port called Dell 810. Really strange.

I thought I would be able to create a USB port manually, but this doesn't appear possible. Only LTP or TCP ports are possible. I had an idea that I could plug in another USB printer which would theoretically create the port for me, but how do I or can I create a USB printer port manually?

Anyone with experience with this lovely printer would be much appreciated

[contink]

I don't know the printer but I suspect your problem comes from the fact that you plugged the printer in before you installed the software. Reaching back into the dark ages of USB devices I seem to remember that this was generally frowned upon and would leave junk in the system that then made it very difficult to actually install the drivers. This could be what's happening for you.

To check I'd try installing this printer on a different machine but this time do the install and then plug it in when it tells you to. If that works you'll know we're on the right track.

Alternatively you could try using 7zip to extract the drivers from the installer for the printer and then allowing the hardware wizard to use those to install the printer.

Either way, good luck.

[Michael]

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll try installing it on a second machine first, following the advice you gave, but part of me wonders whether the printer is actually damaged and not operating as it should. I've not seen this behaviour before, hence me posting!

[OutToLunch]

As stated above - this is 'standard' behaviour if you plug in a device before installing the drivers, it can be an absolute nightmare to sort out. I see it a lot when fixing PCs for friends who aren't the "Read the quickstart guide" types.

Best bet is unplug it, use the windows search in file option with the device name to search inside .INF files which may have been partially installed and delete them from C:\windows\inf (or sort by created date and look for the ones that have just been added)

Then grab the USB device view tool from Nirsoft and remove any occurrences of the printer than can be found. Reboot. Put the CD in and begin install and cross fingers.

Say

Repeat steps 1-3 about 20 times and eventually just before you say ing printer, it will work.

[contink]

ROFLMAO... Unfortunately OTL is spot on... except I'm usually onto x 10 to the power of 500 by the time it works... or has proven that printers can't fly

[richard.thomas]

Go into the device manager and remove anything that looks like the printer (obviously with printer unplugged) then do a 'Scan for hardware changes' then run the installer again. Should sort you out. If that doesn't work uninstall all the USB stuff. Then restart (make sure printer is unplugged!!) It'll take a awhile to reinstall everything when you restart but you should be ok to install the printer with CD then

[MyDejaVu]

and for you to know, it its not possible to create USB ports, also cannot delete USB ports, all this is done by windows automatically, the USB ports are created by the drivers hence you saw that dell 810 port, what I have done in the past, is to go to device manager and delete whatever you think is related ti the printer, like "usb printing support" etc.. then you need to restart a number ot times your machine so Windows will clear the virtual ports not in use , during all this process, please, please do not have the printer plugged in,,, so then you can try First!!!! starting with the software drivers installation and then Until they ask you to plug the printer, do so, this problems is not just to the Dell (Lexmark) printers, also with all this all in one HP ones!

[maniac]

You'll probably find an 'unknown device' in device manager, which if you remove, then re-run the printer setup should make it install properly. That's what normally happens in my experience, although some of the above do occur as well, depends on how much of the driver installed before it asked you to plug the printer in!

Mike.