laptop settings - hp 8620 "driver unavailable" error message.

[tnareau]

I have been trying for 2 days now to download drivers for this printer.  In settings, the printer is there, but under the icon it says "driver unavailable"....I have downloaded and removed several times to no avail.  Printer is working fine with other devices.  HELP

[greenturtle]

Hi,

Thanks for using the HP Forums.

Try these the steps :

Note that if you have other printers installed, you will need to reinstall those printers after doing this.

1. Uninstall the HP Software from your PC.
2. Do a registry backup before making any registry changes, this document will be useful :

     https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c03485724

3. Update registry using the Reg file below (that will change some printer related policies for your PC):

     https://www.dropbox.com/s/avbv56zdgwv7600/kernel.reg?dl=1

4. Right click the Start menu and select Run.

     Type Services.msc and press OK.
     Locate and stop the Print Spooler service

5. Browse to c:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers.
     Rename W32X86 to W32x86.old
     Rename x64 to x64.old
     Note: if any of these folders fail to delete reboot your PC and then Continue following the steps starting from Step 4.

6. Restart the computer

7. Reinstall the FULL feature Software 

Hope that helps!

[tnareau]

No, that didn't help.  I have done all that.  AND come to find out!  I finally got a message on my laptop that said:The printer driver is NOT compatible with a policy enabled on your computer that blocks NT 4.0 drivers.  so i googled that....seems there is a win10 update that is the issue.  SO....since my printer connection hasn't worked for the last week or so, I UNINSTALLED the last Win10 update (KB4041676)  uninstalled the printer stuff (for the 100th time), reinstalled it and WALLAH.........it works.  Now what really FROSTS me is that Microsoft and HP obviously can't work together to make sure this doesn't  happen in the first place!  I am not happy with either of you...after 3 days of wasted time!  Windows XP was the absolute best...Windows 10...not so much!

[Suzieq0214]

THANK YOU!!!!  Finally!  We've been working on this for several days and it works now!! Thanks to your info about the Windows update.