After you install updates that impact printers….

I have several printers at home and several printers at the office.  Some drive me crazy, others are well behaved.  Generally speaking HP drive me crazy, Brother and Lexmark printers are more well behaved.  The big copiers/printers at the office that we lease are Ricohs and once you get the drivers just so most of the time we’ve left them to just do their thing.  But lately Microsoft has been working on security issues with the print spooler code that attackers use to gain access to our networks.  So our nice well behaved printers are now slightly driving us crazy as a result. .

So, these days after updating, here are some steps I recommend that you review.

• If you have it set up to be connected via a network connection, that is you have your printer on a wireless or wired connection and it normally is on a specific IP address, click on start, settings, devices, printers and scanners and review your printer setup.
• First recommendation is to ensure that you have disabled the setting in Windows 10 where it decides what printer you are going to use. Ensure that “Let Windows manage my default printer” is NOT checked. Every time I’ve had this enabled, I end up with the wrong printer in use.

• Next, I always set up my wired or wireless printers via tcp/ip address.  I will go into the settings and ensure that in settings, printers and scanners, click the printer name, click on manage, click on printer properties and then review the port setting.  Make sure it’s  set for IP address if you’ve set up the devices on the network.  You can determine what IP address by typically printing out a demo printer page from the printer itself. This will tell you what the IP address is. Then review the setting and make sure it’s set for an IP address that your printer has picked up from your router. Newer printers like to pick up a WSD port and I still have issues when I use that protocol.
• If your printer is connected via USB the process is similar. Go into settings, then click on the printer name, click on manage, printer properties and review the port settings. Ensure that you see it connected to the proper USB port.
• The next thing I do for any printer I set up is give them a reasonable printer name. So if it’s on my computer, I’ll rename it Susan’s Color printer rather than Lexmark HD-2425. This is especially handy when I have printers  remotely as well as locally and I need to know which one is which.

Doesn’t everyone have a Barbie doll that is a Computer geek for decoration in their home office?

If all of that was confusing to you, here is a video showcasing what I mean.