Devices and Printers Dialog Box Empty

Anonymous
2009-10-30T22:04:54+00:00

When I open my "Devices and Printers" dialog box, it is empty; nothing shows up and the item listing says "0 items". 

The devices and printers showed up in the Devices and Printers dialog box earlier, but now are gone from the dialog box.  However, they are still in the system as everything seems to work.  The problem comes with trying to set the preferences for any of the devices or printers since they can't be seen or accessed. 

Anyone got any ideas of how to get the devices and printers to show up again?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2010-03-07T06:22:04+00:00

Devices and printers will show one device when you have configured multiple printers for the same device.   There is a fly out menu to get to all the other printers on the device.    Use the spooler teams UI, printmanagement.msc to view all local printers on Pro and Ultimate.

The old printers folder can be launched if you are running Home versions.

Open a command prompt and paste this in.

start shell:::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\0::{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

Alan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

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Anonymous
2009-11-27T18:23:06+00:00

I am having the same problem. I did a clean install from Vista and the computer has worked fine for weeks.  Today, my devices and printer window is empty. I can still print from some applications, but Windows Live Mail gives me an error when I select print:

'an error has occurred in the script on this page'

line:291

char: 1

error: interface not registered

Code: 0

URL: res://ieframe.dll/preview.js

Do you want to continue running scripts on this page - Yes or No?

Barry

By the way, no new hardware has been installed recently.

I found another post that solved my problem.  I was about to give up and re-install Windows 7, but tried this and it worked.

Go to: http://iefaq.info/index.php?action=artikel&cat=42&id=133&artlang=en

for the CMD file and explanation.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-03-06T23:56:53+00:00

    Hi Paulo,

    The two main printers that I have are both Network Printers. I setup the computer to connect directly to them wirelessly through TCP/IP. Both printers also allow for USB connections, so I also have setup the same printers but through USB using Virtual USB printer port.

    Both printers are color 2-sided printers and print in varying quality levels. So that means that I have a number of combinations available for each printer:

    1 Sided BW Draft, 1 Sided BW, 2 Sided BW Draft, 2 Sided BW, etc for Color in addition to Photo quality for color.

    As for the install procedure, for the Lexmark I use the Lexmark 7600 install disk (Win7 compliant) and for the Tektronix I use the Add a Printer function.

    This exact setup worked perfectly in XP Pro and Vista and only for Win7 Pro am I having this anomaly of not being able to see all of the printers.

    Is there some place in the registry that limits what is visible? Is some value improperly set to 5? I have so far been able to work around it, but for the misconfigured printer which happens to be a 2 Sided printer it means that people send to it and get single sided and then have to reprint. That sucks up time and $$. I wish I could find a way to remove it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-03-06T23:45:42+00:00

    Hi computer und mensch ,

    I can't say exactly when this occurred because I wasn't looking for the problem. I simply installed all of the printers and then when I realized that one was not configured properly I went to DP and only saw 5 printers. So I would say that it never went above 5.

    So I removed Fax and expected that it would disappear and one of the "Hidden" printers would appear. No, it just dropped to 4. So I removed all of the visible printers and it still didn't show any of the hidden printers. I can't remove them because I can't see them in DP but they are still present and available for use in other programs.

    So I reinstalled the printers that I uninstalled and the only work around that I could come up with for the misconfigured printer was to install it under another name. What stinks about that is that others on the network have been trying to print to the misconfigured printer and so it screws up some print jobs.

    Max printers that it is up to again is 5. I'm stumped. This is really bizarre.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-03-06T22:47:09+00:00

    5alarm: one thing is causing me confusion: What you mean with "both USB and network connection" ???

    Please, explain me the install procedure, if you don't mind?

    Paulo

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