Help - all my printers have vanished!

All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could have
happened? How can I get them back?

I have discovered that the print spooler service was stopped, but every time
I star it it just stops again.


"Trevor" wrote in message
o.uk...
All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could
have happened? How can I get them back?

On Dec 19, 4:36*am, "Trevor" wrote:
I have discovered that the print spooler service was stopped, but every time
I star it it just stops again.

"Trevor" wrote in message

o.uk...

All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could
have happened? How can I get them back?

Delete all the items in the spool or the whole folder and restart your
system. Everything should come back. You probably already solved the
problem. If this doesn't work, use the restore function to set you
back to a previous date where everything worked.

Yes used the restore function and now OK - tks


"Al" wrote in message
...
On Dec 19, 4:36 am, "Trevor" wrote:
I have discovered that the print spooler service was stopped, but every
time
I star it it just stops again.

"Trevor" wrote in message

o.uk...

All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could
have happened? How can I get them back?

Delete all the items in the spool or the whole folder and restart your
system. Everything should come back. You probably already solved the
problem. If this doesn't work, use the restore function to set you
back to a previous date where everything worked.

This happened to about 6 computers on vista I know when they installed a
microsoft 'update'

"Trevor" wrote in message
o.uk...
All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could
have happened? How can I get them back?

On Dec 23, 5:43*pm, "Evan" wrote:
This happened to about 6 computers on vista I know when they installed a
microsoft 'update'

"Trevor" wrote in message

o.uk...

All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could
have happened? How can I get them back?

And that's a good point to note. Always establish plenty of restore
points. I avoid automatic updates so I know which ones are going in
and I can set a restore point beforehand. Also, MS will automatically
sign you up for things you may not want such as permission to check
through your computer. Yes, they say they are doing it for your
benefit so there is no unauthorized MS software installed. I call
shenanigans and refuse to give them such wide ranging permission. And
I have valid licenses for all my software.

On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:38:37 -0800 (PST), Al
wrote:

On Dec 23, 5:43*pm, "Evan" wrote:
This happened to about 6 computers on vista I know when they installed a
microsoft 'update'

"Trevor" wrote in message

o.uk...

All my printers have vanished suddenly from control panelprinters. One
Canon colour, one HP 1022 laser, and several pdf printers - what could
have happened? How can I get them back?

This also happened to me, when I got a particularly nasty virus. I
use Norton Internet Security, and the "cleanout procedure for the
bad-guy files also shut down the print spooler! Either Norton really
screwed up, or the virus-writers in Eastern Europe are getting very,
very clever. In any case, rebooting my system restored the printers.
Unfortunately, the reboot also restored the malware, due to a rootkit
being present. I needed to use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to get rid
of the rootkit.


And that's a good point to note. Always establish plenty of restore
points. I avoid automatic updates so I know which ones are going in
and I can set a restore point beforehand. Also, MS will automatically
sign you up for things you may not want such as permission to check
through your computer. Yes, they say they are doing it for your
benefit so there is no unauthorized MS software installed.
Huh! How can a software patch routine do that?

I also have valid licenses for everything, but I refuse to register
with MS (as opposed to activate).

-AH
I call
shenanigans and refuse to give them such wide ranging permission. And
I have valid licenses for all my software.