A friend called me with an issue on his GF work computer. This is her computer that is used for work. I know very little background other than what I just helped them through. I am not on site .
The PC is an Optiplex 7xx series loaded with Windows 10. First gen Intel machine so far as I am aware, maybe second. They have an all-in-one Brother printer scanner model DCP-L2550DW. The machine will print fine, it works both wired and wirelessly. The issue is that the scanner quit operating and will not be detected by the PC and the printer will not detect the PC if you attempt to scan directly from it.
If you navigate to the printers and scanners section of control panel the printer is seen, but if you navigate to scanner it's an 'empty box'.
The scanner was working fine and just quit. The GF went to some YouTube video that recommended she download "Windows Fax and Scan" (more on that in a second) which she did by following the link on the video notes, installed this Windows Scan program and the scanner magically showed up and worked for several days. It stopped and, as above, will not be detected or work to the PC both by the network (wireless) connection or by the USB plug.
I just helped them to uninstall the "new" scan program. We verified that the stock load of Fax and Scan is still within the Windows tools and will open. I had them delete the Brother software and printer drivers, go to Brother and re-download and install them. As before the printer functions work fine but the PC does not detect the scanner. The scanner does not detect the PC.
Something of note that I found strange was that during the driver install it did not ask to install Control Center 4 which is a program my Brother all in one utilizes in order to be able to have more functionality directly from the PC.
Apparently this machine is full of all kinds of things "she doesn't want to lose" and doesn't want me to reformat, which may or may not fix the issue anyway. I suspect some rouge driver issue from the YouTube link or the possibility that the printer may have a hardware issue and aside from a clean install as an attempt there is nothing more I know to try or do for it. Wanted to check with you smart folks for an idea.
The PC is an Optiplex 7xx series loaded with Windows 10. First gen Intel machine so far as I am aware, maybe second. They have an all-in-one Brother printer scanner model DCP-L2550DW. The machine will print fine, it works both wired and wirelessly. The issue is that the scanner quit operating and will not be detected by the PC and the printer will not detect the PC if you attempt to scan directly from it.
If you navigate to the printers and scanners section of control panel the printer is seen, but if you navigate to scanner it's an 'empty box'.
The scanner was working fine and just quit. The GF went to some YouTube video that recommended she download "Windows Fax and Scan" (more on that in a second) which she did by following the link on the video notes, installed this Windows Scan program and the scanner magically showed up and worked for several days. It stopped and, as above, will not be detected or work to the PC both by the network (wireless) connection or by the USB plug.
I just helped them to uninstall the "new" scan program. We verified that the stock load of Fax and Scan is still within the Windows tools and will open. I had them delete the Brother software and printer drivers, go to Brother and re-download and install them. As before the printer functions work fine but the PC does not detect the scanner. The scanner does not detect the PC.
Something of note that I found strange was that during the driver install it did not ask to install Control Center 4 which is a program my Brother all in one utilizes in order to be able to have more functionality directly from the PC.
Apparently this machine is full of all kinds of things "she doesn't want to lose" and doesn't want me to reformat, which may or may not fix the issue anyway. I suspect some rouge driver issue from the YouTube link or the possibility that the printer may have a hardware issue and aside from a clean install as an attempt there is nothing more I know to try or do for it. Wanted to check with you smart folks for an idea.