I ran into this problem today and after much searching on google I was able to come together with a few solutions as well as the one that ended up working for me.

The problem seems to be a faulty printer driver that may have been corrupted or messed up by a windows update.  So if your printer had been working and now is not try the solution below.

The solution is to delete the print drivers on your system and re-download the latest drivers from the manufacture website but that’s not as easy as it sounds.

Most posts wanted me to open a “Print Management” which can be found in the control panel under administrative tools to delete the printer drivers.

The only problem is that I did not have “Print Management” under control panel because my print spooler is stopped so this was not much help.

Another way to bring up “Print Management” is to run the command “printui /s/ t2″ without the quotes.  This did bring up the “Print Management” for me but I could not delete printers because my print spooler was still not running.

My final solution that worked:

1. Unplug all of your printers
2. Navigate to where your printer drivers are stored C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS\
3. Make a new folder called OLD
4. Copy all files into the new folder called OLD
5. Go to the control panel – click Hardware and Sound – click Devices and Printers (Make note of printers deleted for step
6. Right click on all of your printers and click Remove Device
7. run “printui /s/ t2″ from the start menu / run dialog box
8. Select the printers that you deleted in step 5 and delete them.
9. Restart your computer (Your print spooler should now stay running)
10. Download the latest drivers from your printers manufacture website
11. Install the drivers and hook up the printers again when prompted to do so by the software.

Did this work for you?  Let me know if the comments.

What you will need

• External Drive Case or USB Drive Connection – This allows you to connect your hard drive from your computer to any other computer.  You can usually get one of these from your local computer store.
• Flash Drive

1. To start if you do not have access to login to Windows we will need to pull the hard drive out of your desktop and or laptop.  To find out how to do this refer to your manual or manufacture website.
2. Once you have the hard drive out install it in your external case or hookup to your USB Drive Connection.
3. Then plug it into another working computer.
4. Show hidden files  (Open Computer, Click Tools – Folder Options, Click View Tab, Click “Show hidden files and folders”)
5. Navigate to ( (Drive-Letter):\users\(user-name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\) where Drive Letter is the drive letter of your drive and user-name is the username of the account you want to get the email from.
6. Copy the Windows Mail folder to your usb flash drive.  You now have all of your emails, contacts, and account information.
7. Once you have your non-working computer working again you can simply copy the Windows Mail folder to (C:\users\(user-name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\) and all of your email, contacts, and account information should be restored.

Let me know if that works for you, Good luck!

So this is the first thing that we alway try, so if you find that Windows Update refuses to install patches it is very possibley because of the following DLL‘sfailed to be registered with Windows.  Just follow the instructions below to fix it.

Step 1. Open Notepad (or any text editor).

Step 2. Copy and paste the following command lines into the Notepad window (the /s switch runs the commands silently, freeing you from having to press Enter after each line):

regsvr32 /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32 /s wups2.dll
regsvr32 /s wups.dll
regsvr32 /s wuweb.dll

Step 3. Save the file to your desktop, using a .bat or .cmd extension.

Step 4. Double-click the icon of the .bat or .cmd file.

Step 5. A command window will open, run the commands, and then close.

Let us know if this works for you or not in the comments.

Ran into a very interesting Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 bug today, could not display the menu bar even though we clicked the menu bar option in the tools menu.  After clicking menu bar it put a check next to it in the tool menu meaning that it should have been displayed but it was not.

After searching high and low the fix ended up being very simple.  Simply click tools – toolbars – links which will bring up the links bar.  After that the check mark that was next to menu bar in the tools menu should be gone.  Now just click Tools – Menu Bar and your menu bar should be back, feel free to remove links bar as it is not necessary to keep it on.

This is the first time we have run into this but I would bet that Microsoft will issue a patch for the bug eventually.

The meeting started off with two minute introductions where you got to introduce yourself and tell a little bit about your past week or so. I stated my name and that I was the owner of TCTEKS as well as that my week mostly consists of fixing hundreds of other peoples computers (I love my job). This is a very good way to start off the meeting as in addition to me there was a few other new people attending.

After the introductions it broke down into random chatting about different subject that people brought up such as podcasts, network, and Linux of course. This lasted for a good 10 – 20 minutes and was very interesting as everyone is very into technology and Linux.

Once the chatting slowed down then we got into the meat of the meeting (60 minutes+) which is going over the weekly newsletter which can be found on the website. This was very interesting and had a wide range of targeted topics such as Gnome 2.2 now available, Don’t trust Microsoft, Netbeans, Hulu.com, etc… The discussion was very lively, spirited, and involved everyone.

After the newsletter discussion is over the meeting once again broke down into random chatting about technology subjects, Many based on what we just talked about in the newsletter as well as many others such as Cantenas, dd-wrt, etc… This goes on until one at a time people started leaving with the meeting coming to a close around 9:15pm.

Overall this was a very positive meeting and I will definitely be making this a weekly event on my calendar. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions as well as feel free to join the meeting next week as its a very welcoming atmosphere.

What I do not like about the interface is that if you leave it at its automagically configured settings then it is painfully slow. Unless your computer is running 2GB’s of RAM (ours is running 1GB) then it just seems to slow to a crawl and lets not forget the random lockups. If you turn off all the graphical enhancements then it really speeds up and is mostly usable.

Some other issues are the constant barrage of pop-ups asking are you sure you want to do this? and then after say ok it asks again are you really sure? Just to delete an icon it takes three clicks and two pop-ups which is just crazy. I know this is in the name of security but take a look at Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X if you want to see a good handle on security. Security can be attained while not being completely annoying.

So all that talk brings me to the point of trying to stay away from Vista if at all possible. I know Microsoft is going to be and currently is pushing Vista on people and XP machines are becoming hard to find but I would search high and low for them if you have the time. Currently we have all XP machines (new and used) and are staying away from Vista as long as possible. This is also a good time to try out Ubuntu Linux (which has come a long way and is a very viable option) or give Mac OS X a shot which is a proven alternative to windows.

Let us know what you think in the comments below.