HP LaserJet P1006 - Dialog Box for manual 2-sided printing is in Spanish (need English)

[frank7070]

I ran ljP1000_P1500-HB-pnp-win64-en.exe downloaded from HP's website to install the drivers for the P1006 printer to a 64-bit Windows 11 system. It prompted me to plug the printer into the USB. When I did that, it said it was finished installing. When I go to print a document and select the HP Laser Jet P1006, the dialog boxes for setting the printer properties for the job appear normal (i.e.: in English). When I select to manually print on both sides of the paper, and then print a 2-page document, the dialog box that comes up after the first page prints (asking me to re-insert the paper into the feed tray) appears but is all in Spanish. I need to know how to get this particular dialog box to display in English. It does display in English on a 64-bit Windows 10 system where the printer has been installed for years; but on this new computer (Windows 11), it displays in Spanish.

Here is what a typical (English) dialog box looks like:

 

Here is what the dialog box for re-inserting the paper to print the second side looks like:

 

Here is what the dialog box for re-inserting the paper to print the second side SHOULD look like (from my Win10 machine):

 

I have tried several times removing the driver using Print Management, then re-installing it. The one dialog box remains in Spanish. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks in advance!

[frank7070 · Accepted solution]

So... it seems that some super-sleuthing enabled me to find the fix! Let me explain...

There were Spanish phrases in the dialog box that must exist as strings in some file on my C drive. The first thing I tried was a simple string search of C: (for the string en ambas caras) using explorer search (File contents option), but when it turned up nothing, I came to the conclusion that the string must be in unicode, which explorer cannot search for.

Since I had WSL (Ubuntu) installed on this machine, I lapsed into a linux (where I am way more comfortable than in Windows) approach - use grep to search the entire C drive for that string in unicode. The linux incantation to do a half-assed unicode search for this Roman string is:

sudo find /mnt/c -type f -exec grep -H -a '.e.n. .a.m.b.a.s. .c.a.r.a.s' {} ';' | tee /tmp/frank

It ran for over a half hour but turned up a couple of hits. One was a file in /Program Files/HP, and (more importantly) the other was the file /Windows/System32/HP1006SMs.DLL, Even after removing the printer (using Windows Settings) and the driver (using Windows Print Management), this detritus remained behind. It was apparently the source of the problem because even though ljP1000_P1500-HB-pnp-win64-en.exe will install these files, it will not overwrite them if they already exist.

So... the total solution was (and is):

1. Remove the printer using Windows Settings/Bluetooth & devices/Printers & scanners/HP LaserJet P1006/Remove.
2. Remove the driver using Windows Print Management/All Drivers/HP LaserJet P1006/<right click>/Remove Driver Package. You may have to reboot before this will work.
3. Delete the directory c:\Program Files\HP.
4. Delete the 3 files c:\Windows\System32\HP1006LM.DLL, c:\Windows\System32\HP1006SM.EXE, and c:\Windows\System32\HP1006SMs.DLL. The third of these implements the dialog box in question, but I think it's best to delete all three so they will all be re-created correctly.
5. NOW run ljP1000_P1500-HB-pnp-win64-en.exe to re-install everything clean. It will ask you to plug in your printer to a USB port, and then it will declare success. Spanish is gone.

The crux of the problem was the Spanish version of the file c:\Windows\System32\HP1006SMs.DLL. This was not being considered part of the driver package and was never getting replaced with the English version. Apparently my computer's manufacturer's pre-installed Windows 11 contained the detritus of the Spanish version of this printer driver. The fault, however, is HP who has not properly packaged all the driver files so that they could be removed in one fell swoop. But then again, the driver dates to 2013, so I'll cut them some slack 9 years ago.