HP printer won't work since recent Office 365 update

Hi Carlos, 

I'ts Word I'm mainly trying to print from, and NO, I can't print from Word at all (to the HP printer).

I regularly print using Office 365 - typically about 30-40 pages a day.

The update happened about 2 days ago, and starting causing all sorts of issues straight away - including issues with downloading Excel files. The main issue was that for the first day (yesterday), I had to keep turning the printer off and on, to get it to print anything.

I do have second Lexmark Laser Printer (which just about works), and I am currently using that - and it's printing off fine (even though the quality of the printing is poor).

Am I right in thinking that the driver comes straight from the Windows/Office 365, as there doesn't appear to be a separate driver? I went on the HP website earlier, and it said that the HP Officejet Pro K550 is no longer supported, as it's over 10 years old. So, I would guess that this has perhaps filtered down to the MS driver system, and as soon as a update occurs, the unsupported printer won't work anymore? Even though it was working perfectly, and has been working perfectly, for the last 10 years!

If this is the case, it is extremely frustrating that it looks like Microsoft has now forced me to have to buy a new printer, at a time when I really don't have the spare money to do so............

Regards

Roger

Hi Roger,

It's quite odd for you to start experiencing an issue printing after an update with Office 365 occurred. There might something that we need to check, like the connection of your printer to the computer. However, let us not assume anything yet until we isolated your concern. Can you provide us the answers to these questions:

• Are you able to print from Microsoft Word on your desktop?
• Are you trying to print a regular file from Office 365?
• When was the update occurred?
• Are you able to print from other websites?
• Have you tried using other devices to print?

We're looking forward to your response.

It might not. It is possible that MSFT forced the Win10 driver on you and that is what broke the printer setup. In which case you will need to reinstall the Win7 drivers. I would download them too so you have them if you need them. In some cases going back to the original installation discs can work when nothing else does. Trial and terror...

I tend to disagree with anyone that suggest it is 'odd' or rare that a forced 'update' inadvertently breaks something. In fact it my observation that many to most of the problems posted to these forums are a result of MSFT trying to fix one thing with a patch only to break something else. That is my primary objection to the mandated updates with Win10...or any mandated updates. I personally would not allow automatic updates of Office if I had that option. But I am old school...if it ain't broke then don't fix it.

I would go ahead and try the Win10 driver and if it does not work then you will need to install the Win7 driver. The point is the 'update' broke the printer setup and you need to reinstall it, not throw away your printer.

One final tip: rather than uninstall all the printer programming you might want to try changing out just the driver using the Device Manager. There are lots of references for you to do this but here is one: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-open-device-manager-2626075

DavidF

Thanks David, I'll try that. I presume you are suggesting that the Win10 driver would still work on Windows 7?

There appears to be a Win10 driver for your printer that was released in 2014: http://www.hpdriver.us/hp-officejet-pro-k550-printer-drivers/

I would assume that the update broke your printer connection so uninstall the printer and reinstall using either your Win7 driver or the newer Win10 driver. You should not need to buy a new printer.

DavidF