When In Doubt: Restart

When your printer starts acting up a bit, or won't print the right colors, or won't print at all, very often it is the printer driver that is at fault. Because your printer driver is software, it can be affected by many of the things that affect software -- for example, you may have installed a program that conflicts with your driver.

As a result, the first course of action when your printer or scanner begins to misbehave is to uninstall the old driver, download a new one from the manufacturer's Web site (because the one that came on a disc with the printer has probably been upgraded by now), and install it. However, very often that doesn't work. That means something else is wrong, right?

Well, not necessarily.

Sometimes, the reason a new install of a printer driver doesn't work is because the old driver is still being felt. The printer driver sits in the memory of both your PC and your computer, and unless it is wiped from both, you have no way of knowing whether your newly installed driver is really working or not.

In order to make absolutely sure that the older driver is not getting in the way of your new driver, here is the process to follow. (These instructions are specific to PCs, but while the part about plug-and-play does not apply to Macs, the general principle is the same.)

1. Download the new driver, but do not install it.
2. Shut down both your printer and your PC.
3. Disconnect the USB connection between your printer and your PC. The easiest way to do this is usually to disconnect it from your printer, but either will do.
4. Turn your PC back on and let it boot up.
5. Turn your printer back on.
6. Reconnect your printer to your PC.

At this point, your plug-and-play operation will take over, and you will be able to install your new driver.