Same printer installing multiple times

Question

I use a laptop and therefore I don't always have my printer plugged in.  Everytime I plug in my printer to use, Vista finds it as a brand  printer and installs it all over again.  I have had several copies of my printer on here at a time.  How can I stop this from happening because it is very annoying.

Thanks!

Answer 1

ehailey said:

I use a laptop and therefore I don't always have my printer plugged in.  Everytime I plug in my printer to use, Vista finds it as a brand  printer and installs it all over again.  I have had several copies of my printer on here at a time.  How can I stop this from happening because it is very annoying.

Thanks!

Hello ehaily,

When a device is connected to a new port for the first time the device driver is retrieved from the system and then installed. It may not make a whole lot of sense but it does occur. However, this should really be a "behind the scenes" process, and you should not see multiple entries when you go to Control Panel > Printers.

Thus, I'd like to point you to information I provided on another post found here: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistahardware/thread/e796c318-86fe-4a3e-8fff-a736334166b5. If you are comfortable with the troubleshooting it will walk you through manually removing the printer from the system. Once complete you could then download the "current" software package from your printer manufactures support website.

ßsod

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If it matters... back it up.

Answer 2

How is this acceptable?  I find this one of the most annoying features of Vista, are there any plans to change?

Answer 3

It appears that the answer is that there are none.  Everybody must understand that Microsoft has implemented this as a feature when in fact it is a royal pain.  Not only does the system load up with umpteen copies of the same printer that has to be reinstalled each time that the system boots, it also has to create yet another copy of the very same printer.  Now you have to scour printers and faxes to find the currently active printer to use.  How is that for convenience?  This is yet another reason not to buy a USB-based printer for use in windows when there may still be a reasonably good parallel printer available.  If Microsoft would stop acting as an ostrich and look at this from a user's perspective and actaullay come up with a fix, they would have some happier users.  Of course, you can do what I am considering.  I am contemplating going to one of the Linux variants to get away from having to accept Micorosft's vision of how things should be without their considering the users.

Answer 4

Hello all,

I would suggest the following to see if we can get only one instance of the printer.

To resolve the issue, perform the following steps:

• Uninstall the printer driver.
• Delete all copies of the printer.
• Reinstall the printer driver using the most updated driver from the manufacter.
• When you reconnect the printer to your laptop use the same USB port everytime.

See if connecting to the same USB port every time will resolve the issue.

Sincerely,

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Marilyn

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

Answer 5

HEY!  I have the same problem.  I use vista home prem on a toshiba laptop.  brand new.  (also had problem w/ vista ultimate on last laptop too)...  I use my laptop at three sites, multiple printers.  EVERYTIME i boot up, the computer thinks that the printers I connect are brand new and installs the drivers and the printer icon in the printer folder.  I end up with multiple copies of the printer in my printer folder, and then have to figure out which one is the "real one" which works.....  or delete drivers, change the ports for one of the drivers... etc etc.  What is the deal here? 

I have:

toshiba laptop, vist hm prem.  all up to date.

Samsung ml-2010 laser printer

Panasonic kx-mb271 multifunction (use the same model in two different sites)

HP 5150 inkjet

brother MFC 7420 multi function

Brother QL500 label printer.

I have all up to date drivers.  downloaded them directly from the manufacturers.  I have carefully followed the install instructions.  I have even uninstalled, rebooted, reinstalled EXACTLY as the programs said to do....  yet still have the same problem.

Go to site 1:  boot computer.  connect usb cables.  automatically reinstall panasonic driver, add printer to folder, making 2 copies of panasonic printer (for this site), then reinstalls Samsung printer, new copy to the printer folder... and so on. 

this repeats at every site every day.  I spend 15 minutes getting things reconfigured, only to repeat it again.  (remember "Groundhog Day"?)

I see from posts online that I am not the only one who gets this problem.  Toshiba was so helpful as to tell me that this was "absolutely normal", and while it was annoying, it was normal.  Then, the tech asked me as to why would I be disconnecting my printer from my laptop on a frequent basis....?  (Oh, I guess I missed the part in the computer and OS manuals which said that I needed to lug all three printers from the first site with the laptop all connected, whereever I take the laptop... 

What????? 

There MUST be a simpler answer.  I have looked over many postings on many sites, and none of them have an adequate solution.