Christina writes in with a hardware question:
Q. When I want to print something a sign comes up and says that my printer is not connected to my computer. I’ve done all of the trouble shooting stuff and all of it says that my printer is connected to my computer. But when trying to print, it says that it’s not connected. What is wrong here? I have a dell924 all in one. It doesn’t have a fax on it. I have a dell b110 I think. The basic starter computer. I’ve had these for 2 months. Brand new!
A. When you go to Start, Settings and Printers and Faxes or Start, Printers and Faxes make sure that your printer is there. Also make sure there is a check mark on your printer name. If not, right click on it and pick set as default printer. You can also double click it and make sure there aren't any print jobs backed up. Another thing to do is to make sure it is online. Right click on it and it should say Use Printer Offline if it is online and say Use Printer Online if it is offline. You want it to say Use Printer Offline for it to work.
You can also right click the printer and go to Properties to check the port that it prints to and you can also print a test page from there.
One more thing to try is to go to Start, Run, type in services.msc and click Ok. From here find the service in the list that says Print Spooler and make sure it is started. If not you can right click it and start it and also set it to automatic.
If that doesn't work delete the printer from Printers and Faxes and also uninstall any software from Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel associated with the printer and then try to install the printer again.
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