Network printer shows as offline but still prints

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phillip Armitage
  • Start date Start date
P

Phillip Armitage

I've a laptop computer running Windows Xp Pro. The system worked fine for
ages, then someone at the office borrowed it for a presentation and when
they returned it they had somehow "lost" all of the printer configurations.
I uninstalled all the printer configurations and then re-installed them.

For the rest of this discussion, lets image that the printer port for a
printer that used to be installed on this laptop was
\\TREE\ORIGINAL_PRINTER. Printers I install and point to this device install
fine, but end up eventually showing as "working offline". If I install a
printer driver and point it to a port that the laptop has never seen before,
say \\TREE\BRAND_NEW_PRINTER then the printer icon in the Printers window
always shows the printer as available.

Now for the quirky bit. Even though the laptop is showing the
\\TREE\ORIGINAL_PRINTER printer as being in work offline mode (icon is
grayed out), if I send a print job to it, the print job gets printed.

I presume that somewhere in the registry XP has assigned some settings to
this printer path so that it always considers it as being offline, even when
it isn't. What do I have to do to clear this?

I look forward to your response
 
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