Win2K Pro printer woes

September 5, 2005 7:34 AM

Printer woes with Win2K

I'm trying to install a Panasonic KXP-7100 on Windows 2000 Professional. It's connected by USB. W2K doesn't come with a driver, so I downloaded the install program from Panasonic and ran it. It installed OK, but when I try to print, I get a "Printer not ready" error. The job shows up in the spooler briefly and then disappears. I've deleted and reinstalled the printer with same results through the Wizard using "have disK" and selecting the driver file created when running the Panasonic install program. Same results -- nothing. The problem seems to be the communications over the USB, but that port works fine with other devices. Gaaaah! I'm dead in the water and work is piling up.

posted by warbaby to computers & internet (3 comments total)

When you plug in the printer to the USB port, does it show up as correctly detected in the Device Manager? Or does it show "Unknown USB Device"? Does it pop up anything on the screen (task notification area) or does it run the "Found new hardware wizard"?

If it shows up as "Unknown USB Device" and/or you get the wizard, then it might be the wrong driver. Is there a chance that there's a different driver you could try? As far as I know these PNP devices all have some kind of "vendor ID" code, and the code in the driver has to match the code that the device sends, and if they don't match then the driver won't be used.

But that's just speculation. I don't know why it would say "printer not ready." I'm assuming you've done all the obvious things like checking that it's not low on ink and so on.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:02 AM on September 5, 2005

-does the printer turn on and come on to a ready state, paper, sensors, ink/toner cartridge all in place

-does the printer do a self print (nearly all printers have a way of printing an internal sheet from the printer itself) this is important

-try plugging the USB directly into the computer if its going to a hub (printers are more resource hogs than other usb devices)

-check out the device manager and see if USB printing support or whatever shows up when you plug and unplug it, if their is some kind of unknown/error in the device manager that could relate to this, uninstall it (usually right click, uninstall) then try plugging it in and direct the found new hardware to wherever the drivers were extracted.

-try a different usb cable

-try pluggin the printer power direct to wall outlet

- in the printer driver properties check what port its set to print to, shoudl be the last USB (sometimes a DOT4) in the list (there could be several b/c the install/uninstalls)

-if possible try the printer on a different computer

if none of this works let me know, i have more tips, but these are the common ones.
posted by psychobum at 8:07 AM on September 5, 2005

The solution to the mystery: W2K is a complete egomaniac and assumes it is the only OS Redmond ever produced. When I got the driver update over the net, it grabbed the XP driver because it was more recent -- and, of course, from that moment I was doomed.

I blew out all the drivers, went to the Panasonic site and downloaded the Win2K driver manually. When I ran it, it said there was a version conflict and uninstalled existing version. I never would have found it wherever it got stashed because uninstalling the printer did not delete the XP driver. Once it was uninstalled, a reboot fixed things and the detect new device on boot worked.

Sheesh. The moral of the story is install W2K drivers manually and don't trust the OS to get it right.
posted by warbaby at 10:20 AM on September 5, 2005