$FriendlyName$ ???

[dustnik3]

When I open the HP Solution Center, two printers are listed. One is my HP Officejet J4680, and the other simply says $FriendlyName$ I have never had any printer called the latter and am concerned that someone has gained access to my computer someow. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thank you.

[Gordon_H]

Hello dustnik3,

I have not heard of this, so I did some research, and found it is not that someone has gained access to your PC. Please see the following link for an explanation and resolution (if you are comfortable with registry editing):

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software/strange-name-in-hp-solution-center/m-p/2264...

[dustnik3]

I followed the link and attempted to do as it directed. I ran regedit but don't have HKLM listed at all that I could see. There were five folderss listed, all beginning with HKEY_  I tried looking around in all of them, even finding Software and Hewlitt-Packard folders, but nowhere did I find my printer. Where should I be looking? Thank you. 

[Gordon_H]

OK...you are probably running Windows 7. Let's try a different route. I have it on good authority that running the HP Hardware Diagnostic Utility found HERE should resolve the issue. Try that and let me know.

[dustnik3]

I ran the program. My printer is listed twice (it's also a network printer). One worked fine and the other had connectivity issues, although it's plugged in, turned on, and shows up in Devices and Printers. Is there anything else I try that doesn't involve this utility?

[Binary_Zen]

Hi,

In the link posted by Gordon_H, the HKLM stands for HKEY Local Machine. Try the steps again and see if you could resolve the issue. I provided the link to that forum post below.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software/strange-name-in-hp-solution-center/m-p/2268...

Let me know if you have further questions.

[dustnik3]

I deleted three versions of my printer name, keeping the original and the network version, but it did not solve the problem. Would it be easier to simply reinstall the printer or the HP Solution Center program?

[dispereo]

Has anyone found an alternative solution to this problem? Obviously the registry trick doesn't work for everyone, especially with more recent software, that installs itself differently, different printers also seem to cause different registry entries?! Not to mention the operating system.

help would be appreciated as I am really getting fed up with that problem.

more details to my issue also in the above posted link:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software-Drivers-e-g-Windows-8/strange-name-in-hp-so...