When using a specific printer driver in Windows 7, Office programs continuously show a busy mouse

Question

Several months ago, we upgraded a number of printers at work. I found the model specific and universal PCL6 print drivers to have an unacceptable level of performance. After doing some searching, I found the 35PPM PCL6 print driver available through windows update. I've installed this driver through windows update on a Windows XP machine and a Windows 7 Proffesional 64bit machine.

When I installed the print driver, both machines had Office 2007 installed. I've had no issues with the XP machine, but on the Windows 7 machine, the cursor started flashing rapidly between the pointer and the "busy" icon. I don't know what it's called now but on previous versions of Windows it would have been the hour glass.

The flickering didn't happen when the drivers were first installed, there was a windows update near the end of may that started this behaviour. I though it might have been something that happend to Office 2007, so I upgraded to Office 2010. This mouse pointing flickering is still going on.

If I select a different printer (PDF Creator, printer specific PCL6 driver, printer specific PCL5 driver), the flickering is signifigantly reduced or non-existant.

This behaviour does not exist at all under Windows XP. It also does not appear in other programs under Windows 7, just in Office.

Answer 1

Go back to the printer site. Post your question there. They are more likely to have encountered the problem, and hopefully have an answer.

While you are there, try some more printer drivers:

• a PCL5 one for that printer
• a PostScript driver for that printer
• older versions of the drivers you have tried for that printer
• drivers for other printers in the same family. Like a generic driver it may provide most functionality

PS: it would be nice to know the make and model for the printer to make it easier for us to search for the problem and fixes.

Answer 2

The computer is on a network. Using a different printer with a different printer driver resolves the issue. This is not the solution I'm looking for.

This is a bug either with the Microsoft supplied printer driver, Windows 7 Professional 64bit, or Microsoft Office.

I found the performance of the printer manufacturer supplied print driver unsatisfactory since PCL6 allows the print driver to interrogate the printer for it's capabilities and seems to do so every time one try's to print. It takes a long time for the print dialog to open, even if the particular hardware is explicitly set in the print driver.

Ive tried the model specific driver, the universal driver from the same manufacturer and universal drivers supplied by other companies. The only driver that responds quickly is the generic PCL6 driver thats available through Windows Update.

Answer 3

Is the computer on network or Domain?

Try to change the default printer and check if Office applications work fine. Refer the link below to change the default printer in vista/win7:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-your-default-printer

Note: If the Office applications work fine then contact your printer manufacturer for further help on this issue.