Drivers, also known as drivers, are small pieces of software that are very important for the proper functioning of devices in Windows . Therefore, the problems derived from them can lead to some serious headaches, such as the printer, among others.
This for example is something that can be given with the printer drivers , as we say, a device that we usually have connected to the PC in one way or another. In fact and for a long time, the failures derived from these specific drivers have not stopped occurring. And it is necessary to take into account that in certain environments, printers are widely used elements. Of course, when an error of this nature appears, this results in that we cannot print the sent documents.
Printer failures in Windows with very common
In fact, one of the most common errors we find here is the one that says in Windows 10 that the printer driver is not available. It is for all this that in these same lines we will see some solutions that will help us solve this problem. Of course, first of all we must keep in mind that many of the solutions that we are going to talk about, will only work if we have administrator permissions in Windows.
Print Driver Problems
Therefore, if we find the aforementioned failure with the printer driver in the operating system , the first thing we should try is to reinstall it. For this we have the possibility to install the driver from the website of the device manufacturer, or use the Device Manager. We access this by typing the command devmgmt.msc in the Win + R run box.
Here we look for the print queue entry, locate the specific printer, and with the right button select Uninstall. Then we restart the computer, after which Windows will then try to reinstall the driver. In this way we will see that the Windows update service will look for an official driver to install.
We can also try using the driver from Microsoft itself, we are talking about the generic printer driver. In fact this can be a very effective solution, since these drivers are offered by Microsoft in case there are no official drivers available. We go back to Device Manager and locate the printer as before. Then we right click on the entry and select Update driver. We do this now manually to be able to choose Let me choose from a list of drivers available on my computer, and opt for the Generic.
Blocking Windows Firewall
But if this does not work and we have a network printer , the device may be blocked by the Firewall . It may be the case that the printer’s IP address is the cause of the failure. The first thing we need is to find the IP of the printer and then access the Windows Firewall. We do this from Settings / Update and security / Windows security. Thus we will already have access to the Firewall and network protection section. Then we can check if the port or IP used by the printer have been blocked here.
Another possible cause of printing failure
On the other hand we will tell you that it may also be the case that we are trying to operate an old printer that we had stored. Therefore, if the problem lies precisely in this, in Windows 10 we can do the following. The first thing we must do is access the Configuration section through Win + I. After that we go to Devices / Printers and scanners, where we click on Add a printer or scanner.
So, when the screen shows the message that says The printer I want is not in the list, we click on it. In the next window that will appear, we can already see one of the options that says My printer is a little older. Help me find her. As you can imagine, this will be very helpful when looking for older models in this regard.
And it is necessary to take into account that Microsoft itself maintains a very large database of drivers. This is something that is done through the update service that the operating system itself implements. Therefore and thanks to all this, we have the possibility of using somewhat older devices in the latest version of the same system. Furthermore, this is not only valid for the printers we are dealing with now, but it also extends to many other compatible devices .
