HP OfficeJet Pro 8710 driver unavailable - I tried everything!

[kujo2025]

Product: HP Officejet Pro 8710

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11

My Windows 11 home edition, suddenly cannot use the HP Officejet Pro 8710 printer.  The Printer & scanners page says the "Driver is unavailable" .   It gets installed as a "WSD Print Device".  The printer can print a demo page from the HP Smart app, and I can print documents from my iphone to the printer.

I downloaded the latest drivers and ran the HP diagnostics, but it still shows "driver is unavailable". 

I have tried everything that I can think of to fix this including all the steps listed below.  Nothing is working!

Let's try and uninstall the printer software from the root level on your PC and install the full feature printer software.

First, unplug the USB cable from the printer if present.

• Go to Control panel – Programs and feature – Select all the HP printer entries and uninstall them.
  • Now go to Control panel – Devices and printer – Select all the printer entries and remove the device.
  • Restart your computer.
  • Click the bottom-left Start button on desktop, type device manager in the search box and tap Device Manager on the menu.
  • Once in device manager, click on the view tab in the top & choose “Show hidden devices”.
  • Then from the device manager list, check the entries under “Printer” – If there are any entries, please right click and choose “uninstall” – In the confirm device un-install pop-up, make sure you select the box which says “Delete the driver software for this device". 
  • Also, check the entries under "printer queue" and "imaging devices" and repeat the same exercise. Delete any printer entry or any entry which says “Unknown device”.
  • Once done, close device-manger. Then press the "windows key" + "r" to get the "Run" window open - Type "printui.exe /s" and press enter.
  • Under print server properties, go to drivers - remove any entry there as well.
  • Again, go running window, type – “c:/programdata” – Go to Hewlett Packard folder, remove any printer related folders & files.
  • Once done you can try cleaning out your temporary files and cached files. You can try using automated applications like some cleaner software's that you can download from the internet.
  • Now restart your computer again.
  • Open the Run window again, type “services.msc” and press ok to get services window.
  • Scroll down to “Remote Procedure Call (RPC)” – right-click and go to properties. Make sure the service is started and startup type is “Automatic”.
  • Now scroll up and go to “Function Discovery Provider Host” – right-click and select properties – Change the startup type to “manual” and start the service.
  • Repeat the same exercise on “Function Discovery Resource Publication” as well
  • Windows image acquisition stop and restart the service 

Install all the available Windows updates

If it is been a while since you updated your Windows, that is the main reason why Windows says your HP printer driver is unavailable. Here are the steps how to do a Windows Update to install all accessible operating system update.

If you are accessing Windows 10, then these steps are for you.

1. Hit the Start menu and write an update. After that, click on the “Check for updates” option.
2. Tap on the “Check for updates” option.
3. After clicking on that option, Windows will install the updates automatically.
4. When Windows completes all its updates, start your computer again and attempt to print a file to check if your printer works

Downloaded the latest HP install software, all of them.  None of the were able to successfully install the driver on my Windows box.   

[kujo2025]

I found a hack/solution that worked for me.  

These are the steps:

1) download the latest driver from HP https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/hp-officejet-pro-8710-all-in-one-printer-series

2) Use 7Zip to extract the files in Full_Webpack-40.15.1230_1-OJ8710_Full_Webpack.exe.exe to expose to the Autorun.inf file

3) Go to Printers & scanners - Add Device -> Add a new device manually

4) Add a printer using an IP address or hostname

5) Device Type -> "TCP/IP Device", Enter Printer IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. Unchecked "Query the printer and automatically select the driver to use"

6) Select Install the printer driver -> "Have Disk..."

7) Browse to the location from step #2 and select "Autorun.inf" file. Select "OK" and "Next"

😎 Print test page. Hopefully it will print.

NOTE: NotePad++ didn't print (0x80040003) until I ran this command in Powershell
ref : https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/23719/print-error-0x80040003/10
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Print\UnifiedPrintDialog" /v "PreferLegacyPrintDialog" /d 1 /t REG_DWORD /f

Hopefully this will help someone else.  I spent a few hours trying to get the darn printer working again.  It may not survive future windows updates.