How To Fix “Windows can not connect to the printer 0x00000057”.
I just got off the phone with a customer who got this error message on her HP Laser Printer when she tried to print from her Windows 7 computer:
“Windows can not connect to the printer 0x00000057”
It’s a very cryptic error message that didn’t allow her to troubleshoot things. So she reached out to me for help.
In English, this error message means the print driver is failing to install as opposed to having a problem with the connection to the priner. An initial attempt to install the driver failed, so the driver directory is present on the computer, but missing the files. Now she had tried to install a free PDF writer right before this happened, so that likely trashed things and Windows 7 couldn’t recover on it’s own.
The fix is pretty simple:
- Delete the printer that has this issue.
- Open up a command prompt in admin mode.
- Type printui.exe /s /t2
- Find the printer in question and delete the driver and package. Note: If it doesn’t let you delete, you may have to stop and start the print spooler.
- Close printui
- Add the printer and test.
When I did that, everything worked.
Also, while I was at it, I installed a free PDF writer called CutePDF Writer for her which has never, ever failed me.
Hopefully, that helps someone. Please let me know if it does.
November 12, 2014 at 8:53 pm
Thanks for sharing.
May 5, 2015 at 11:52 pm
In answer to your question – yes, this was VERY helpful
July 21, 2015 at 7:26 pm
Yep, this helped me very much indeed! Thank you!!
July 31, 2015 at 9:48 am
I was seeing this issue on numerous PCs in our environment. This fix was simple and worked beautifully. Thanks for posting this!
August 26, 2015 at 10:24 am
It worked for me, thanks for posting this!
September 4, 2015 at 4:08 pm
saved my ass today. thanks.
October 1, 2015 at 3:08 am
thanks… it worked
January 8, 2016 at 3:43 am
The best solution for my problem.
Thank you very much!
January 21, 2016 at 5:34 am
This solution worked for me
Open CMD with Admin
pnputil.exe -e
All OEM drivers will be listed
Now delete drivers of Printers in my Case XEROX by doing following
pnputil.exe -d Oem#.inf
replace # with number of driver file .inf
delet all drivers related to this printer.
Reboot system
Done
July 10, 2016 at 12:45 pm
Thanks for sharing, it saved the day. For the record: network printer attached to an old XP PC – client with W10.
December 31, 2016 at 5:55 pm
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