Browser freezes when attempting to print - no printers installed message

Question

I'm running Windows XP on a work machine and sometimes when attempting to print from a browser it freezes for a while (1-2 minutes) and finally shows a pop up saying:

No printers installed.

Going to Start > Settings > Printers proves that in fact they are all still installed.

I get this same behavior in IE8, Firefox 4, and Chrome 11.0. I also get the same behavior in Office and Outlook. Rebooting Windows seems to fix the issue.

Note that if I print from the image viewer then everything works fine.

Any ideas what could be causing this problem?

Answer 1

I would try a few things..

1. Restart the printer spool in services.msc and try again.
2. Reinstall the printer driver or install over top of the existing driver

If it only works in the Image Viewer then its most likely something at the OS/Driver level