Windows cannot connect to the printer. What to do?

Without such an important device as a printer, now nowhere. It greatly simplifies life by allowing you to print all sorts of information. But what do you do when Windows can't connect to the printer and you need to print your document as quickly as possible? The article will discuss this problem in detail and how to solve it.

Why can't Windows connect to the printer

If it weren't for a computer and a printer connected to it, we would still be writing by hand, spending a lot of time and effort on it. And if everything is clear with a PC - it doesn’t work, which means you can’t create a document, then everything is different with a printing press. We turn to it when everything is ready, and it remains only to transfer the information from the monitor screen to paper. There may be several reasons why the printer does not connect to the computer:

The device is not physically connected to the PC.
Printer not installed.
No drivers.

Checking connection

The first step is to check if the printer is turned onand if the LED is on. If not, then turn it on, check the connection to the network, and whether there is electricity at all. It may sound funny, but often Windows fails to connect to the printer for this very reason.

Next, we check the physical connection to the computer, i.e. via cable. If the cable is connected, it is worth pulling it out and plugging it back in. It is possible that it was not fully inserted. Maybe the problem is in the cable itself: it burned out or broke. Therefore, it is best to take somewhere the same wire from a working device and connect it to ours. If the machine worked, then the problem was in the cord.

Install printer

Often, Windows cannot connect to a printer because it has simply been removed or is defective. The cause may be a virus or a driver failure. In this case, the latter may remain. Therefore, we go to "Start", then "Devices and Printers". See if the one you want is on the list. In the case when it is not there, click "Install Printer" and "Add Local".

Press "Next" and select from the list first the manufacturer, then the model. Click next, after which the printer icon should appear. If it is, but an exclamation mark hangs on it, delete this setting and set it again.

Install drivers

In any "Windows" there is a set of drivers for many printers. One has only to connect the printing device to the PC, as he immediately starts looking for the right driver in the database and installs it, after which you can immediatelystart typing. But since operating systems were released relatively long ago, such software is not available on all models, especially new ones. Therefore, Windows cannot connect to the printer, because the system cannot install the driver on its own. Do not rule out cases where the drivers were simply corrupted for some reason. You can see this by right-clicking on the "My Computer" icon. In "System Properties" click on the menu on the left side ("Device Manager"). Expand the list "Other devices" and see that the printer driver is faulty (there is an exclamation point).

Select it and delete it. If this list does not exist at all, then the reason why Windows cannot connect to the printer is that the driver is simply not installed. In both cases, you need to install it.

If the printer was purchased relatively recently, then it should be accompanied by a software disk. It's simple - we find this disk and install its contents. If there is no disk, it doesn’t matter, we download the necessary “firewood” from the Internet. We go to the manufacturer's website, go to the "Support" or "Service" section, select "Download drivers". Next, from the list by brand (in most cases, you can find it in front of the printer model name), find the one you need, download the files and install them.

Often, drivers for old printers for Windows 7 are presented not as an installer, but as an archive with many incomprehensible files. They are installed as follows: click on "Start" / "Devicesand printers. Click on "Install" / "Add Local" / "Next" / "Install from disk".