Windows 7 and Dell printer B1260 dn

Have you ever been able to print using this printer?  If so, what happened to your system shortly before the problem started?

Are there any lights lit or flashing on the printer?

See http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN290537/how-to-determine-led-status-on-the-b1260dn-dell-laser-printer?lang=EN

Press and hold the "Information" button on the printer for about 2 seconds and then release.  This should print a "supplies info report / error report."  Did the report print?  Did it indicate an error condition?

Press and hold the "Information" button on the printer for about 4 seconds until the status LED on the printer blinks slowly, then release the button.  This should print a test page.  Did the test page print?

Assuming that the above tests show that the printer itself is working properly, you can see if thoroughly uninstalling the printer and then reinstalling it will get things going.  The following procedure is a bit more thorough than just uninstalling and reinstalling the printer driver.

Download the current printer driver here: 

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/dell-b1260dn/drivers

Note:  There are several files available for download at this page.  The two you should consider are "Dell B1260dn Mono Printer Software Suite and Driver" (which is in the "Application" section and is an 87 MB file) and "Dell B1260dn Mono Printer Driver" (which is in the "Drivers for OS Deployment" section and is a 45 MB file).  I don't know what sort of "applications" Dell bundles into its "Software Suite," but if this were my system, I'd download the driver only.  The choice, however, is yours.

Disconnect the printer from the computer.

Uninstall printer-related software from Control Panel > Programs and Features

Clean out any stuck print jobs (even though the print queue shows empty) --

• Open an Elevated Command Prompt (search for "cmd.exe"; right-click and select "Run as administrator")
• Type the following in the black Command Prompt window and press Enter after each line

                           net stop spooler

                           del /Q "%windir%\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*"

                           net start spooler

Clean out a possibly corrupt printer driver

• Go back to the Elevated Command Prompt (or open it again -- search for "cmd.exe"; right-click and select "Run as administrator")
• Type the following in the black Command Prompt window and press Enter

        printui /s /t2

        exit

• Select the driver for your Dell printer and click "Remove"
• Select the radio button to remove the driver AND driver package and click OK

Reinstall printer using freshly-downloaded software package.

Did you print a test page using a control on the printer itself?

The directions for printing various test pages came from the User Guide for the Dell B1260dn:

Given what you've done so far, the only other thing I can suggest is to see if connecting the printer to a different USB port, preferably one on the back of the computer, works.  If some of your USB ports have black plastic inserts and some have blue, be sure to use one with black inserts (black is a USB 2.0 port and blue is a USB 3.0 port).

The printer was working fineabout rwo weeks ago.  The only system change I made was to delete a Microsoft Visual C++ program.  I was getting an error message "runtime error " This took care of the problem, but may have affected the printer?

I presently have the following Visual C++ programs installed  2005, 6ea, 2008,6ea, 2010, 2ea, 2012, 1ea, 2013, 1ea, 2015, 1ea.  I can print a test page, but don't know what you mean about the "information" button.  The printer has a blue power button that is lit.  The only button lit.is the blue button.  If I hold it down, two green lights come on when I release it, but they will go out after a few seconds and the blue light comes back on.

I cleared the spooler and deleted and reinstalled the driver as suggested. Printer seems to be installed properly, but windows doesn't seem to be communicating with it.