At first everything seemed like something harmless and with a quick solution when at the end of June 2022 microsoft released a regular update for its Windows 10 operating system that came with an annoying built-in bug.
This failure caused the computer to automatically cut off communication with any printer previously installed and configured on the computer.
The strange point is that the bug, which seems to be here to stay, was always displayed in the same way, showing the same printer duplicated a couple of times in the configuration panel but sometimes not working in either of them.
Over the weeks, the company has released new patches that, ironically, have been accompanied by new bugs.
Like the one that disables the simultaneous use of Wi-Fi on the computer and the network sharing function through the Mobile Hotspot panel.
In some cases even the patches have not even fixed the issue and the non-working duplicate printer is still being seen on the computer. But there is more than one way to fix everything.
How to get back to using your printer after upgrading Windows 10
If you have detected that your Windows 10 computer was affected by the bug described above, the first obvious solution is to check if any of the duplicate printers are working fine. To do so, follow these steps:
- Open the Settings menu, navigate to the Bluetooth and devices section.
- Select Printers and scanners.
- When showing the list of duplicate printers, right click on one and choose the option Print test page. If the page comes out in order, it is only necessary to remember which printer is the functional one.
If the problem is not resolved, it will be necessary to try to reconfigure the printer as if it were new. For this, the steps are essentially more or less the same regardless of the model.
Update the device’s print driver. If you already have the latest driver, check the printer manufacturer’s website to find out if there is a new version of the firmware.
If you already have the latest driver with the latest firmware version and you are still having problems, then uninstall and install the printer again. with these steps:
- Turn off the printer and unplug the cables.
- Go to the Settings panel, go to Bluetooth and devices and select Printers and scanners.
- Select the printer and a right click will open the menu with the Remove device option.
- Turn off the computer.
- Turn on the printer and reconnect it to the device. To start everything as if it were new.
If even this does not solve it, there will always be the extreme option of uninstalling the updates from Windows Update that ruined everything.
To do so you just have to press the Windows key and then type “View update history”. The list of all updates will appear crowned above by the option to Uninstall updates.
Clicking there will show us the schedule of all Windows Update interventions. So we must look for the earliest date of the update where the failures began and that’s it, we follow the steps to uninstall it.