WSD ports consistently breaks printing

[AlbertAlbert]

I've been experiencing a recurring problem, (for months), with one of my customers' HP printers. Each time she calls to inform me that printing had stopped working again, the reason is ALWAYS the same. For some reason, known only to the trickster gods, after a time, Windows 10  has removed my explicit directive to use a manually configured TCP/IP port, and assigns this Cthulian entity known as a WSD port. Mind you. If the wretched thing worked, I wouldn't care. The customer wouldn't care. You wouldn't care. BUT IT NEVER CONSISTENTLY WORKS! Eventually, printing always breaks!

She has an HP LaserJet Pro Multifunction M428fdn, connected to the network by Ethernet -- as is her computer. When I first installed it, I was forced to use HP Smart rather than the tried and true method of downloading the drivers from HP support. Is HP Smart the culprit? (It's my number one suspect, anyway.) She is also connected to other printers on the network: an HP OfficeJet Pro 9015. An HP Enterprise MFP M630. Also, a couple of  non-HP printers as well.

So. I want to permanently exorcise this WSD demon from her computer. I want Windows 10, (maybe HP Smart), to honor my TCP/IP settings and stop treating those settings like it was some sort of mistake that Windows is so-kind-to-correct.

What's the best way to do this? Maybe I need to reach deep inside the printer's settings to cast away this monstrosity. Or, maybe that's just one step. I don't know. Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Anderson_CR]

Hello,

Hope you are well, by checking the description of the printer, I recommend the following steps;

go to this webpage: click_here   , download the HP universal print driver postScript , once downloaded open the file, and then run it, it has its own wizard menu, follow the installation process and make sure to use traditional mode, create a new port , type: TCP/IP port, then insert the printer´s IP address and go next , also run the test page once the option comes up. 

Once printer is installed, please use the control panel to go to the devices and printers, there you may see the printer icon, right click over it and then go to the ports tab and make sure the port is not WSD, it should be the IP address TCP/IP port.

restart the computer and then double check the windows is not changing the printer port to WSD. Normally it should not. 

test printing more documents after that.

Regards,

[AlbertAlbert]

Thank you. It seems like a reasonable solution and I will try it on my next visit to the customer. But, I'm embarrassed to admit that I was a bit too hyperbolic in my "rant". I also posted the message before laying my eyes on the situation. (I made assumptions that should not have been made.) Today, I checked the manual IP port settings and they were intact. They were as I left them a few months ago. It appears to be an intermittent issue not necessarily related to WSD that I'm still tracking down.

But, rather than deleting the post, I want to apologize to the community for my hastiness. However, the situation did in fact happen before as I described it. The IP port I configured did disappear and they were replaced by a WSD port which eventually failed until I recreated the manual IP port. After some further thought, I can entertain the possibility that maybe there was a system corruption that forced Windows to "rescan" the network for printers and set a WSD port by default. That's just speculation and I still don't know what caused the original event. But, if it happens again, I will definitely let the community know. WSD is not a new problem to plague network admins. The technology seems unreliable, IMO.