HP LaserJet Pro MFP M281cdw not working with Microsoft Office

[tptdac]

This printer is not working with Microsoft Office 2010. Attempts to print from Office applications all fail, some with error messages, some not. Error messages are not useful, just the usual "check the cables" blather. The HP software print tests work. Adobe Reader works. Notepad works. So the hardware must be okay. I have run the Office repair tool. Also ran System File Checker. The Microsoft and HP troubleshooters all come up empty. I reinstalled the HP driver, got the same result. HP only seems to have one driver for this printer, so no opportunity to try a different one. One oddity is that under "Devices and Printers," choosing this printer and selecting "Printer Properties" and then "Print Test Page," this fails with "The parameter is incorrect." The suggested troubleshooter comes up with nothing. I have spent over 10 hours working on this thing. Unless someone has something useful to suggest,  this printer will shortly be on its way back to Costco.

[ShlomiL]

Hi,

From my experience a such may happen due to insuffisient user permissions.

Plese open the control panel and select User Accounts, then press User Accounts again and take a note of your exact username.

Next right click the Start button and select Run.

Type %temp% and press OK.

Browse one level app and right click the Temp folder, then press Properties.

Within the Security tab click Edit, then press Add and type your username.

Press Check names to verify the username and then press OK.

Check the box next to Allow - Full Control for your user, then press Apply.

Press Yes, then keep pressing Continue for any alert, there might be quite many alerts till you are back within the Security tab.

Now press OK and check if you may see any difference while trying to print.

May you see any difference?

[ShlomiL]

Hi,

From my experience a such may happen due to insuffisient user permissions.

Plese open the control panel and select User Accounts, then press User Accounts again and take a note of your exact username.

Next right click the Start button and select Run.

Type %temp% and press OK.

Browse one level app and right click the Temp folder, then press Properties.

Within the Security tab click Edit, then press Add and type your username.

Press Check names to verify the username and then press OK.

Check the box next to Allow - Full Control for your user, then press Apply.

Press Yes, then keep pressing Continue for any alert, there might be quite many alerts till you are back within the Security tab.

Now press OK and check if you may see any difference while trying to print.

May you see any difference?

[tptdac · Accepted solution]

ShlomilL,

Your solution was pretty close. The problem was indeed with the folder referenced as %temp%. For the benefit of other readers, the reference expanded to D:\Users\[myusername]\AppData\Local\Temp.

Windows wouldn't let me change the permissions in the manner you suggested, not even if I went after the Temp folder using Windows Explorer, opened using "Run as administrator", which gives higher privilege than ordinary "administrator". There were some dire popups about damaging the integrity of inheiritance or something like that. I had never seen popups like these before.

I got the idea that the permissions structure of this Temp folder was in an "illegal" or corrupted state as far as my current Windows 10 OS is concerned. I compared it with the permissions structure of parallel Temp folders for other users on the same PC. It looked notably different.

In short, my approach was to delete the offending Temp folder and create, or allow to be created, a new one.

There were some obstacles to this, so I will recount what I did. First, I tried a direct delete of the folder itself. This ran a while, occasionally asked for administrator permission to delete some files, then stopped when a file in active use was encountered. Going into the folder, I selected blocks of files to delete. This time, when a file in active use was encountered, Windows was kind enough to name the associated application. There were two such applications, Microsoft OneDrive and zoomit64. OneDrive is an integral part of the OS and you apparently can't close it like a normal application. You have to "unlink" it (for how, Google on Microsoft Onedrive and "unlink). I never signed up for Onedrive, but apparently some piece of it was running. If you use OneDrive, you will need to later relink it. This allowed me to delete all of the files directly in Temp. Then all the folders in it (including one named "HP") deleted normally. Then I was able to delete the offending Temp folder itself.

I then tried printing from Outlook and again got an error, but a different error message, so that was obvious progress. The Temp folder was not recreated automatically by the print attempt. I made a Temp folder, which I later discovered was one level up from where it needed to be. Not realizing that,  I went to Recycle Bin, and selected and restored the "HP" folder, thinking it might be necessary. Doing this automatically created a new Temp folder (in the right place.  I then realized that the Temp folder I had directly created was in the wrong place. I am not sure if restoring the "HP" folder itself was necessary or not. I think that all that was necessary was creating a new Temp folder, which had a different permissions structure from the deleted one. Anyway, at this point I could print from Outlook and Word with no difficulties, so I didn't bother to check things out further.

I am guessing that the permissions structure of the old Temp folder was created under an older version of Windows, possibly Windows 7, and that it was probably "legal" back then.

Thanks for the tip!