Vista Forgets Default Printer after Reboot

Question

Every time I reboot my Vista machine it forgets the setting that I had for the default printer. I have tried setting more than one type of printer as the default and that doesn't appear to matter. It's simple enough to set the default printer again, but why is this happening?

Answer 1

What I found so far:

It will default to the first one it finds after logon, so in your case, I'm thinking the logon to the network is taking longer, therefore it finds the fax first.

Hopefully I can find you a work around, else you'll indeed have to delete other printers or life with it

Edit: Voila!

There are times when you want to change the default printer of a user or group of users without having access to the user's (or users') computer(s). You can do this by making a registry entry.

To change the default printer, add the registry entry as shown below:

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious, system-wide problems that may require you to reinstall Windows NT to correct them. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use this tool at your own risk.

• Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
• Under the HKEY_ CURRENT_USER subtree, go to the following subkey:

Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows

• Add or edit the following registry entry

Device:REG_SZ:

where is the value that Print Manager would put in if this operation were done through Print Manager. It would resemble one of the following:

\SERVER\HPLASER,winspool,Ne00: or DESKJET,winspool,LPT1:

The Ne00 is a network port and LPT1 a local port.

With some applications, the default printer is read at the time the application is started and you will need to close and restart the application for the new default printer to show.

Answer 2

I looked into internet postings on this subject and it appears that this is an uncorrected bug. I have exactly the same problem; I never connect remotely; I don't do any of the things the Microsoft people blame the problem on. For some software it still recognizes the list of printers, but requires you to choose; for others the software tells you no printer is installed at all. In all cases I have found the only thing to do is re-establish default printer at each reboot.

I suspect that there will never be a fix for this so get used to resetting default printer at each reboot.