Dell AIO 926 Printer + Vista == Fail?

I'm trying to help an old lady out with her new printer she got from Dell. She is using a relatively new Dell Inspiron PC (521S or something like that, the tall skinny silver one) with Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit. Her old printer, an Epson CX7400 or something similar, broke so she bought a Dell All-In-One 926 printer. This one, she said, would print dozens of pages before it would stop printing, so she asked for a new one from Dell. They sent her another AIO 926 and it also has issues.

This printer will spool print jobs but will only print one document, if that, and then will not print until the machine is rebooted two or three times. Then, it will only print the first item in the queue. After a document is spooled, the printer menu (double-click on printer in Control Panel, forgot name of menu) will show the status of the documents as "Deleting - Sent to Printer"

I cannot restart or cancel the documents. I have installed the drivers for this thing about 10 times and from different sources (CD, Dell website (multiple versions)) and it will not work.

I think that the printer drivers are perhaps not compatible with Vista. I have Googled around and have found other people with the same problem. I have not found a solution.

Does anyone know of this issue? Has anyone tried this printer with XP and with Vista? The printer hardware is just fine; it will scan and print documents via the onboard software, but will not do anything correctly from the PC. I suspect the drivers are for XP and are incompatable…

Dell All-In-One Printer 926 will NOT print spooled documents in Vista without multiple reboots, then it prints only one document at a time. Hardware is 100% functional. Problem is software. Incompatible drivers?

What can I do, short of buying her a new printer?

Just tossing these out there, since I figure you've already seen them:

http://windows-vista-updates.blogspot.com/2007/09/dell-all-in-one-printer-926-vista.html

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/Details.aspx? type=Hardware&p=Dell%20Photo%20All-in-One%20Printer%20926 &v=Dell&uid=&pf=2&pi=4&c=Printers%20%26%20Scanners&sc=Multifunction&os=32-bit (Split up so it doesn't extend the thread width)

Just in case.

Yup. I tried that driver on the dell site, it didn't work.

As before, it would spool the documents but would not print anything until a few reboots.

Something unusual that I forgot to mention before:

I reinstalled the printer on another user account and it worked just fine. Apparently, Dell had installed that account via Remote Assistance, and she asked me to remove that account.

It was apparently not working before on either account. Now the only account on the install is 'Dell', the original user on the machine. Printer does not work currently :\

Thanks anyway, Zephyr. I tried the 32bit vista driver.. I believe it's the same one on the install disk.

Oh, and about the dell driver: compatable with

"Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit Microsoft Windows 2000 Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP x64"

ThorsDecree wrote: I reinstalled the printer on another user account and it worked just fine. Apparently, Dell had installed that account via Remote Assistance, and she asked me to remove that account.

… Huh? You gotta explain this one. :)

When I arrived there were two users on the machine. One was 'Dell', the original preloaded account. The other was the name of my client, which Dell support had installed remotely. I reinstalled the printer drivers on the second account and it printed properly at least twice. My client then requested that I remove the second account (with the working printer) from her machine and help her set up her first account as it had been before another tech guy had messed with it (driver executables, etc. scatterd around desktop).

I deleted the second user (that Dell had installed) so the only user currently on the machine is 'Dell', aside from Administrator and Guest (disabled).

The printer has yet to work on user 'Dell' at all.

That an OK explanation? :D

Yeah, that's a pretty good one… Have you taken a Linux LiveCD to it to see what was in the folders associated with the "Dell" user? Really, just look for any files that you didn't explicitly download. In your Docs, Desktop, etc., I mean.

Nope. I just came in and tried to install the printer. Haven't done a virus scan or anything… I use a portable suite of software normally, including ClamWin, a few specialized utilities (ComboFix, VundoFix, etc.), and generally useful other crap.

I guess I should do that, but would there be anything there that would prevent the printer from working correctly?

The drivers install without a hitch, and windows says it recognizes no problems with the printer. Hardware is fine, software should be fine.

I'm not that familiar with Vista anyway >.< though I use it frequently at school, and I was hoping to not spend much time on this, since I don't charge by the hour…

So, what exactly would I be looking for? The user is not very familiar with computers (understands email, typing, web browsing) and she doesn't really use the computer for much more than that. I'll look around, but it would be nice if I could come up with a list of things to try when I return. AFAIK, the system is almost virginal in that she has installed almost nothing except Trend Micro Antivir and a poker game she got at the store.

ThorsDecree wrote: When I arrived there were two users on the machine. One was 'Dell', the original preloaded account. The other was the name of my client, which Dell support had installed remotely. I reinstalled the printer drivers on the second account and it printed properly at least twice. My client then requested that I remove the second account (with the working printer) from her machine and help her set up her first account as it had been before another tech guy had messed with it (driver executables, etc. scatterd around desktop).

You're looking for whatever was making it work as this user, not something that could be preventing it from working. Vista sucks… but, we won't get into a discussion of that. Is the computer prompting you to run the driver install as an admin when you try to run it, or are you running it as the normal user?

… Have you tried calling Dell?

ThorsDecree wrote: So, what exactly would I be looking for? The user is not very familiar with computers (understands email, typing, web browsing) and she doesn't really use the computer for much more than that.

Drivers or executables, I'd imagine. You just said that the Dell support people set up the second account the way it was… so, really, her habits don't matter. You're looking for what they did. Also, in the future… when a client asks you to delete a user to create a new one, create a new one first and get it working like the other before you delete it. :)

Yeah… I realize I should have done that now :\

I figured that if it worked on one user, it should work for the whole machine.

The files from the other user are gone, I removed them when I removed the second user. I am thinking of creating a fresh user account, installing the printer on it, and then transferring all her settings to it.

I learn by making mistakes, which is why I charge about 1/4 of what everyone else around here charges… that, and I'm not insured :S

freelance ftw!

And yes, the drivers were installed as administrator… actually, 'Dell' account is an admin on the machine. I agree that vista sucks, too :\

I'll try installing the printer from a new account and I'll get back to you. Thanks, Zephyr.

if(computer.os == vista) { computer.state = fail; }