Articles about Printer problems

Recent updates for Windows 10 and Windows 11 had the peculiar side effect of causing printers to spew out random printouts. The culprits were the updates released back in January, although it took Microsoft a while to concede that there was a problem.

Having acknowledged the issue, Microsoft has finally produced a fix some two months after the problems emerged.

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If your printer has been spontaneously printing at random, you’re not alone – and you can almost certainly blame a wonky Windows update from Microsoft.

The company has acknowledged a strange print issue affecting some users of Windows 10 and Windows 11 who installed recent updates for the operating systems. The peculiar behavior affects USB connected dual-mode printers that support both USB Print and IPP Over USB protocols and Microsoft has been forced to resort to a Known Issue Rollback (KIR).

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Around two months after acknowledging an issue with some printer drivers and Windows 11 2022 Update, Microsoft has addressed the problem and lifted the safeguard hold it had put in place.

The safeguard hold meant that people with printers using Microsoft IPP Class Driver or Universal Print Class Driver were blocked from upgrading to Windows 11 22H2. But in removing the block, Microsoft has opened up the latest version of Windows 11 to more people.

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The release of Windows 11 2022 Update (AKA Windows 11 22H2) has not been an entirely smooth process over the course of the last month. There have been various issues preventing certain people from upgrading, but now one of these problems has been addressed.

It is now several weeks since Microsoft first acknowledged an issue related to some printers, and put a compatibility block in place. With the problem having now been fixed, it means that a large number of people will now be able to upgrade to Windows 11 2022 Update.

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It may only be a little over a week since Microsoft released Windows 11 2022 Update, but the problems it is causing are coming thick and fast.

The most recent issue involves printer drivers, and it has caused the company to place a compatibility block on some people upgrading to the latest version of Windows 11. The good news is that there is a relatively simple workaround in the meantime.

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It is the time of the month that sees Microsoft releasing preview versions of upcoming updates for Windows, and this is precisely what the company has done with the optional KB5007253 Preview cumulative update for Windows 10.

Available for Windows 10 versions 2004, 20H2, 21H1 and 21H2, this update addresses 0x000006e4, 0x0000007c and 0x00000709 errors associated with networking printing. It also includes a fix for the Microsoft Installer (MSI) issue that was causing problems with Kaspersky apps, as well as fixing a laundry list of other problems.

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The seemingly never-ending stream of printer problems caused by Windows updates shows no sign of abating.

Following the Patch Tuesday releases a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft has added warnings of known issues to the support pages for the KB5006674 and KB5006670 updates. Printer-related errors including 0x000006e4 (RPC_S_CANNOT_SUPPORT), 0x0000007c (ERROR_INVALID_LEVEL), and  0x00000709 (ERROR_INVALID_PRINTER_NAME) are among those the company says users may experience.

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Ahead of next month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released a preview version of the KB5006738 update for Windows 10.

There's quite a lot to this cumulative update, but what is probably going to be considered the highlight is the fact that it addresses various printer-related issues that have been plaguing Windows users for some time now.

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You would be forgiven for thinking that printer problems go hand in hand with Windows update -- there have certainly been plenty of OS patches that that have caused such issues in recent times.

The recently released KB5006670 update is just the latest in a long string of updates that have led to problems for Windows 10 users. People whose systems have been negatively affected by the update report being unable to connect to network printers while seeing 0x00000709 and Element not found errors.

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There have been a spate of problems with printing in Windows recently, including issues introduced by updates from Microsoft.

The most recent problems came for people who installed updates released this Patch Tuesday. Some found they were unable to print or scan after installing the updates, and now Microsoft has released a couple of out-of-band patches -- KB5005394 for Windows 10 and KB5005392 for Windows 7.

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This month's Patch Tuesday updates are proving problematic once again. Yesterday we wrote about KB5003637 causing problems for apps accessing event logs, and now it appears that this very same update is causing problems with not only printing, but also the updated taskbar in Windows 10. Affected users complain of broken, vanishing and corrupt icons in the taskbar and notification area.

If all of this sounds a little familiar, it's because it is very much the same problem caused by KB5003214 last month. There's a key difference this time around, however. While KB5003214 was an optional update, KB5003637 is one that is automatically installed.

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Over the weekend we reported that Microsoft had paused the rollout of the out-of-band patch for the ongoing printing problems in Windows 10. The cessation came after reports of installation problems associated with the fix.

Now it appears that the company has re-released the KB5001649 update, but it remains to be seen whether this finally brings to an end the lengthy and embarrassing saga for Microsoft.

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Following reports that a recent update to Windows 10 was causing blue screens as well as problems with printing, Microsoft issued a new series of updates to address the issues. But it seems that the problems caused by this month's Patch Tuesday updates are actually worse than first thought.

Users with certain brands of printer experienced APC_INDEX_MISMATCH errors and blue screens, but now Microsoft has issued a warning that there may be additional problems with elements missing from print outs, or even entirely blank pages being output.

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