Windows 7 PC and a networked HP DesignJet 500 - cannot print from one PC but OK from others!

Dave Trouser

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Sep 21, 2013
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This one has got me stumped, so I'm hoping someone has a trick not found in an extensive Google search!

I've been upgrading a number of PCs from Windows XP to Windows 7 (all machines were actually Win7 or Vista when bought and downgraded, so all compatible).

There are 3 PCs that matter here. Two of them are Dell machines with Dell OEM Windows 7 Home Premium - one 32 bit and the other 64 bit. These two PCs can print with no problem to the HP500 over ethernet.

When it came to setting up the third PC, it needed a retail version of Windows 7 as it had been an OEM Vista machine from HP, so we went with Win 7 Pro using the 32-bit disc to install (as it comes with a 64-bit disc for later upgrades or for use on a new PC later on).
I did everything the same during this setup that I had done twice before, but no matter what I have tried, it cannot print to the HP500, despite having the same driver (from the same source!) with the same settings. The only difference is that the PC that cannot print to the HP500 is Win7 Pro, not Home Premium - surely not relevant? The same services relevant to printing and networking are all running on all three machines.

There are 2 other printers on the network - a Brother MFD and an Epson WorkForce - all 3 PCs can print to these with no problems at all.

Now, the problem PC. It will not even print a test page - the job appears in the print queue, but disappears within a second or so. I can ping the HP500, and access its web interface without issue from the problem PC.

I have tried:
Uninstalling and reinstalling - no effect.
Uninstalling the AV/Firewall software and disabling the Windows equivalent.
Uninstalling, then manually removing every last trace of the HP500 from the registry, printer spool, driverstore, every DLL, INF etc - literally no trace the printer was ever known to the PC, followed by renaming the spool etc folders in System32 and restarting the spooler service.
I then tried downloaded the HP diagnostic tool, which found no problems and printed its own test page on the HP500 - thought that was it, but it still wouldn't print the windows test page, nor print from anything else, EXCEPT Notepad. It can now print a text file from Notepad.
I tried changing from using port 9100 to using LPR on 515, with no effect. Nothing can print to this printer except Notepad... why?!
I also tried running SFC - which did report that it had fixed some things, but it made no difference - I even repeated the step of removing all trace of the printer again, and running SFC a second time - no joy. Still a notepad-only printer from that PC.

Printing to the two other printers works flawlessly. There are no print errors when attempting to print to the HP500, nor any trace of a problem in the event viewer - the jobs just silently disappear from the queue.

Besides wiping the PC and starting again, does anyone have any suggestions? Plugging the HP500 in to the PC via USB is not an option, due to physical distance.

Edit: forgot to add that I of course tried the Windows troubleshooter, which could only suggest making the printer the default - which did nothing.
 


Direct network printing (also tried printing to it via another PC that is sharing the HP500 - same result!). There is only one driver for the Designjet 500 (no HPGL card). The printer has the latest firmware - but that's not the cause because every other PC can print to it just fine. The problem clearly lies with the PC that cannot print, but because there is no trace of the print job in any logs, it's proving impossible to diagnose.
 
OK, the problem is now solved, although the reason doesn't make much sense. In the advanced settings for this printer driver, there is a tick box for "Advanced Printing Features". This is ticked by default, and it is still ticked on all the other Win 7 PCs that have no printing trouble. Out of curiosity I unticked this option, and now the problem PC can print to the HP 500!

So I'm including this information in case anyone else has a similar issue and can't find the answer on Google!

The best explanation of that tick box is probably this one:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/enable-advanced-printing-features.html