Devices and Printers Dialog Box Empty

Anonymous

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?

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Anonymous

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

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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142 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-01-27T09:41:34+00:00

Jeff... I can't believe my eyes.

I'll try that right away. There is one thing however... if files get corrupted right after a fresh install, what are causing that?????

And if the scannow get it right, how long will they be right?

Anyway, that are good news my friend. As you know, I have 4 Windows 7 and 1 Vista machines, so I will get to an end.

Soon I'll be back... with my news.

P
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Anonymous

2010-01-26T22:27:57+00:00

HI Paulo:

Our posts crossed a few hours ago. I found the thread related to this issue that mentions running the system file checker. I cross posted in this thread

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7hardware/thread/a112aca0-8654-4fcf-8b54-fbf08124e49e

It boils down to sfc /scannowwhich ran for many minutes, did find a problem and now all is good. I did all this before I found your most recent post.

I will try the above tonight and let you know. I have a baseline of my system partition with 100% working (I hope).

Regards,

Jeff
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Anonymous

2010-01-26T11:12:56+00:00
OK Jeff. I'm glad i'm not alone here.

First, I must say that I still have 3 PC with problems.

However, the last one (the 4th one) (more info about how I proceed with Windows 7 installation here: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/pt-BR/w7hardware/thread/2a9360b1-522e-46fb-ade5-89d4411e4876) never give problems till now. It's starting to show the very same issues.

Some BAD news: I found a single Windows Vista installation here in my network, that have AutoCad stop at startup too. However, Vista do not have "devices and printers" window, so... i'm confused. But the symptoms are the same.

Things I do to make the "devices and printers window" get populated again:
- 2 or 3 reboot's will do
- Reboot with that window open trying to find devices...
- Uninstall the Network Card and reboot (reconfig if necessary after).
Known symptoms:

"Devices and Printers" window is empty

Office Excel freeze just changing a color element

AutoCad stop responding when starting - freeze completely.

Jeff: You could try something here:

I'm almost sure that the problem is related with Network card - hardware or software issue.

Please, do the Uninstall of the Network Card in Device Manager. Reboot the Notbook, it will reinstall. After that the "Devices..." window should be not empty. Do you need help with that?

Then post you result's.

Thanks. We will be in touch here.

Paulo Miranda
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