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.