Printer not showing up in devices and printers

Hi, I'm David an independent advisor and user just like you. I'll do my best to help you with this.

I sometime find this happens - it usually sorts itself out after some time, and especially after a Restart (specifically a Restart rather than a Shut Down).

However usually you can find the printer in either the old Control Panel or the new Settings App - you can set it as default from either location.

So via the modern Settings app: Click START > Devices > Printers & Scanners - can you see your printer in the list there?

Or via the old Control Panel: Right-Click START > Choose Run > type "control" in the box and press OK, find "Devices and Printer" - can you see your printer there?

Hopefully you'll find it in one location or the other.

Regards,

David

Hello, I work at an MSP and we have several companies with the same issue; I was the first to notice it here about 3-4 weeks ago. For context I have observed this issue in 8, 10(Build 1803, 1809 and 1903). You can see the printers if you go to the classic printers view.  As a workaround I have been mapping the classic Printers folder via at 'registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace" with a key{2227a280-3aea-1069-a2de-08002b30309d}." You can also get to it by Start -> Run >  C:\Windows\explorer.exe ::{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}. I figured this was a Microsoft issue once I saw the issue on the 5th company, is there a Microsoft investigation open at this time? By the way the issue seems to be isolated to Control Panel's Devices and Printers, as well as Printers & Scanners in the Windows 10 settings. You can manage the devices in print management without an issue, so it's just those 2 interfaces that seem to be affected. Applications also detect the printers and it seems the only way to remove the printers is Device Manager. Device manager will also show the printers that you've added via Devices in Printers they just won't show in devices in printers. Another strange behavior I have noticed is there is a Catastrophic failure when adding "Shared Printers" Where it populates detected printers on the network an you select a printer. However if you added it by directory it will add, and if you search by directory it may fail, the most consistent is adding by directory "\servername\printername". The print troubleshooter doesn't work, but maybe there is a driver issue, I remember on one workstation it was stating an issue with the "Identifier Driver" with an exclamation point over the device(the workstation) in Devices and Printers, ran the repair the printers would show up for that one instance, but it would immediately break again if you tried to add any other printers and the exclamation would be there regardless of the result.

When it's listed like that it usually means it's trying to update the driver or hasn't been correctly identified. Although I appreciate you can actually print ok from applications!

Have you tried restarting the computer since you've noticed this problem? Specifically the Restart option and not Shut Down? That forces Windows to completely reload and might just clear out something which is jamming this up.

You can also try the Windows Printer Troubleshooter which will try and identify what's going on - if you click on START and type "Troubleshoot" you should see the "Troubleshoot Settings" item... click in to that then click on the Printer troubleshooter which might be able to help.

David