Netscape, IE4, Notepad don't "see" my printer, but MS Word, Autocad, Wang Imaging do?

[wchang99]

I recently got a hold of my sister's printer and got it working but only with some apps in Win 95. It's an HP Laserjet 6L, with all of the default settings which I haven't changed. The drivers I got from HP's web site rather than the disk that came with the printer.

Strangely, the driver it's using, as shown in control panel/printers, is "Absolutely Bogus WPS Printer Dr" instead of HP Laserjet 6L, which it refuses if I try to select it...What in the world is up with that?

Anyway...what's happening here? Why would it work sometimes under Windows but not all the time?

Thanks a lot, as always, for any input!

WChang

[LazMan]

That's a good one! I don't believe I've seen any printer driver that installs with the text "Absolutely Bogus WPS Printer Dr".

Disclaimer: the following procedure is not recommended for the weak or faint-hearted. Extreme care must be taken when using the tools described, or serious damage to your operating system WILL occur, possibly causing the loss of all data and even the operating system requiring a complete re-format and re-install of the operating system!

What I would do in this situation is to remove all printer devices and uninstall anything related to HP. Run REGEDIT and make a full backup labeled backup.reg. Then do a search for "HP Laserjet", delete all keys that have any references. Then do a search for "Absolutely Bogus" and delete any key referencing this. Next, Open Windows Explorer and Browse to C:\Windows on the left side and scroll until you see the file WIN.INI. Right-click on this file and select COPY. Then move the mouse off the filename to a white space nearby and right-click again, select paste (this will make a copy of this file in the same folder). Then, run SYSEDIT, Close all windows except the one labeled WIN.INI. Search for the above strings you searched for in the registry and delete any lines containing them. Better yet, since we're deleting all printers, find the header labeled [DEVICES] and delete all printer-related entries below the header - not the header itself. Then search for the header [PRINTERPORTS] and/or [PRINTERS] and delete all entries under those lines. Find a header that begins with something like [HPPCL6...], delete this header and all child entries. If there is a specific header labeled something similar to [Absolute Bogus???], delete this and all of it's children. Click on File - Save, then close the application. Reboot your computer for all the changes to be driven home. If any errors crop up during reboot, deal with them by deleting whatever registry entry it's complaining about not finding a file about using REGEDIT, reboot until there are no more errors.

Sounds easy, don't it!?!? Worse case scenario to resusitate some screw-up (assuming you didn't screw up the operating system) is to boot into Safe Mode, run REGEDIT and reload the backup you created following my instructions. Then rename the file in c:\Windows labeled 'copy of win.ini' to 'win.ini'. This will at least get you back to where you started (you hope).

If all printer devices were deleted successfully, then start from scratch to re-install your desired printer using the PROPER printer driver using the Add Printer tool.


BE CAREFUL! Enjoy /forum/smile.gif

Laz