Installing and Managing Printers on Windows Vista

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Installing a printer is usually an easy job. There’s one rule that applies to installing any hardware, and it certainly applies to printers. The rule is: Read the instructions that came with the printer first. Trying to save time by ignoring the instructions and winging it is likely to cost you more time in getting the thing to work. In many cases, you’ll have the option to connect the printer to a USB port or a printer port. If your computer is a member of a network, you might want to install a shared printer that’s physically connected to some other computer. This article looks at different ways of installing printers, as well as techniques for managing installed printers.

Opening the Printers Folder

Aside from actually printing documents, just about everything you do with printers will take place in the Printers folder. As with everything else in Vista, you can get to that folder in several ways. Use whichever works for you and is most convenient at the moment:

- Click the Start button and choose Printers from the right side of the Start menu.

- Tap the Windows key, type prin, and click Printers under the Program heading.

- Click the Start button and choose Control Panel  ->  Printers.

Setting the default printer

If your Printers folder contains more than one icon, only one of them will be the default device for printing. By “default,” I mean the printer that’s used automatically if you don’t specify something else. For example, many programs allow you to print a document to the default printer by pressing Ctrl+P. The program may not ask what printer you want to use. Instead, it just sends the document to the default printer. In the Printers folder, the default printer is indicated by a checkmark. If you want to change the default printer, right-click the printer’s icon and choose Set As Default Printer. The printer or device you specified will now sport the green checkmark, and will be used for printing when you don’t specify some other printer or device.

Testing a printer

If you’ve just installed a printer and want to test it out, follow these steps (here, I’m assuming that you’re already in the Printers folder):

1. Right-click the printer’s icon and choose Properties.

2. At the bottom of the Properties dialog box that opens, click the Print Test Page button.

3. Wait a few seconds (few printers start immediately). The printer should print a sample page. - If the page prints and doesn’t look like gobbledygook, click OK in each open box. - If nothing prints within 15 or 30 seconds, click Troubleshoot for some tips on solving the problem.

If you had to click Troubleshoot, follow the advice in the Printer Troubleshooter first to resolve the problem. If you still can’t get your printer to work, see Article 39 for more options. Also, keep in mind that there are hundreds of different makes and models of printers on the market, and no one rule that applies to all. So, don’t overlook the documentation that came with your printer, or the printer manufacturer’s Web site, which may provide troubleshooting advice.

Installing a New Printer

Before you can use a new printer, you need to connect it to the computer and install it. Many printers give you the choice of using the “easy” USB port to connect the printer, or a standard printer port. Personally, I think the USB port is a bad idea, because you can run into a lot of problems when you disconnect the printer to plug some other item, such as a digital camera, into the port. In the long run, it’s best to use the USB ports for devices you connect and disconnect often. You’re better off using other ports, whenever possible, for devices that are connected to the computer all the time. As mentioned at the top of this article, the main rule on installing a printer is to follow the instructions that came with the printer. Sometimes you need to install drivers first, sometimes you don’t. There is no “one rule fits all” when it comes to installing printers, or any other hardware device for that matter. But in a pinch, where there are no instructions, the techniques in the following sections will be your best first guess.

Installing printers with parallel and serial port connections

If your printer is a typical plug-and-play printer that connects to the computer via an LPT port or COM port, the best approach is:

1. Save any unsaved work, close all open programs, shut down Windows, and turn off your computer.

2. Plug the printer into the wall, connect the printer to the computer’s LPT or serial port, turn on the printer, and turn on the computer. 3. When Windows restarts, look for the Found new hardware notification message to appear.

It’s tough to say what will happen next. If you see a notification message indicating that the printer is installed and ready to use, you’re probably done.

Installing printers with USB and infrared connections

If your only option is to connect the printer through a USB port, or by infrared, the installation procedure should go like this:

1. Close all open programs on your Windows desktop, so that you’re at the Windows desktop with nothing else showing.

2. Plug the printer into the wall; connect the printer to the computer with its USB connection, or configure the infrared connection as instructed by the printer manufacturer.

3. Turn on the printer, and wait a few seconds.

You should see a message in the Notification area that tells you the device is connected and ready to use. You’re done. The printer is installed and ready to go. Regardless of which of these methods you used, you’ll want to test the printer, and perhaps make it the default printer, as discussed later in this article.

Installing a network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer

If your computer is a member of a home or small-business network, and you know of a shared printer on another computer in that network, you can use the technique described here to install that printer on your own computer. The same is true of many wireless and Bluetooth printers. But again, this procedure may not be necessary because Windows Vista often detects network printers and makes them available automatically. Be sure to check the manual that came with a wireless or Bluetooth printer for an alternative procedure before trying the method described here. Also, be sure to turn the printer on before you try to install it. If you’re trying to install a printer that’s attached to another computer in your private network, make sure that both the printer and the computer to which the printer is physically connected are turned on. Make sure your network is set up and you’ve enabled discovery and sharing as discussed in Part X of this article. Then go to the computer that needs to access the network printer and perform the steps to follow on that computer. You install a network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer in much the same way you install a local printer. First open the Printers folder using any technique described at the start of this article. Here’s a quick reminder:

- Click the Start button and click Printers on the right side of the Start menu.

- Tap the Windows key, type prin, and click Printers under the Programs heading.

- Click the Start button and choose Control Panel  ->  Printers.

At this point you’ll be in the Printers folder. If the printer’s name appears in the folder, you need not install it. Though, if you want to make it the default printer, right-click its icon and choose Set as Default Printer. Then, close the Printers folder and Control Panel. You’ll be able to use the printer as described in Article 36. If there’s no sign of the printer in your Printers folder, follow these steps to install it:

1. Click Add a Printer in the toolbar, or right-click some empty space in the folder and choose Add a printer. The Add a Printer Wizard opens.

2. Choose the second option, A network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer, and then click Next. The wizard searches the network for shared printers.

- If the search finds the printer you’re looking for, click its name and then click Next. - Otherwise, if the search doesn’t find your printer, click The printer that I want isn’t listed. If you know the UNC name or IP address of the printer to which you want to connect, fill in the appropriate information. Otherwise, click Browse for a printer, click Next, and navigate to the computer and printer to which you want to connect. Click the printer’s name and click OK. Then click Next.

If you see a warning about printer drivers potentially containing viruses, don’t worry about it. It’s extremely unlikely that you’d ever find a virus in a printer driver. You need to click Yes to let Windows Vista install the printer driver if you want to use that shared printer. If you’re worried about viruses, you can scan for viruses after you install the shared printer.

3. On the next wizard page you can opt to print a test page and make the shared printer your default printer. Make your choices and click Next.

4. Click Finish on the last wizard page.

An icon for the shared printer will show in your Printers folder. If you made it the default printer, it will also show a checkmark.

Managing Print Drivers

Virtually all hardware devices, including printers, come with a special program called a device driver, or just driver for short. The driver provides the interface between the device and a specific operating system, such as Windows Vista or Windows XP. You need to have the correct and current print driver installed on your computer to get your printer to work correctly. Many printers come with the drivers on a CD or floppy disk. How you install a driver from the disk depends on the printer you’re using. But an older printer may not even have a Windows Vista driver to offer. In that case, you’ll need to look for a current driver online. Try Windows Update first by following these steps:

1. Click the Start button and choose All Programs  ->  Windows Update.

2. If Vista doesn’t start searching for updates immediately, click Check for updates in the left column.

3. When the update search is complete, click View available updates or View optional updates.

4. If the driver for your printer appears, go ahead and install it per the onscreen instructions.

If Windows Update doesn’t find an updated driver, it might mean your printer manufacturer hasn’t posted the driver on that site yet. Browse to the printer manufacturer’s Web site and look around for a Drivers link. Or go to their Support page and send an e-mail asking if there’s an updated driver for your printer model.

Saving time and money

Printers, as a rule, are just plain slow. That’s because they’re clunky mechanical devices, and it takes time to move a page through a printer and get the ink or toner onto the paper. If you want a really fast printer, you’re going to pay really big bucks for it. But, no matter what the cost or general speed of your printer, one general rule will apply: The higher the print quality of the document you’re printing at the moment, the longer it will take to print. Here’s another fact about printers in general. Printers are cheap, but ink cartridges cost an arm and a leg. Sort of like the shaving industry where they give you the razor for free, and then drive you to bankruptcy when you buy blades. The printer property that most determines how quickly your documents print and how much ink you use per document is called print quality. The higher the print quality, the longer it takes to print a document, and the more ink you use in the process. You can save time and money by doing all your day-to-day printing in Draft quality, perhaps even without color if you want to conserve color ink. As with other printer properties, setting the printer defaults to low-quality and black-and-white settings won’t prevent you from printing the occasional fancy color document. As you’ll learn in Article 36, you can override those defaults any time you print a document. When you want to print a professional-looking report or a fine photo, just increase the print quality and activate color for the one print job. Those three properties that I’ve just mentioned are the ones that most printers have. Beyond those, the properties vary greatly from one printer to the next. The only resource for learning all the details of your particular make and model of printer is the documentation that came with that printer. Or, the printer manufacturer’s Web site.