When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has decided to
cut 5,500 Microsoft employees, with Windows hit the hardest,
much has changed in the Windows world.
Nadella has cut a lot of testing engineers,
adding the role of testing to that of product manager,
and relying much more on the Windows Insider Program.
Unfortunately, that coincided with the release of Windows 10,
an operating system that was rushed out much too soon and without enough
testing, relying instead on a very rapid rhythm for updates to fix
the expected problems, which did arrive soon after.
Unfortunately again, because of a lack of testing and quality assurance,
the fixes that are now being rushed out tend also to cause problems
in their turn.
It is with great sadness that I witness on this forum,
after each and every major update of Windows 10, the arrival of new problems.
Most of them have no solution except waiting for a fix from Microsoft
or downgrading back to the very stable Windows 7.
So there are very few solutions that I can offer to your problem :
Run sfc /scannow to verify that, for Windows,
its actual broken state is "normal".
Check the Event Viewer for error messages relating to your problem.
Report the bug to Microsoft using the "Windows Feedback" app and wait for it to be fixed.
Use a third-party product, such as the CutePDF Writer that you have already
tried and found to work properly, as a temporary solution
until the problem is fixed by Microsoft.
As a sort of desperate measure, in case the 1511 Windows 10 update
caused the problem, you could maybe find a post-1511 ISO and do
a clean install of Windows 10. This is in the slight hope that some
Windows component that wasn't fully updated before would now work correctly.
The problem is fixed now. Below is what I did to fix it (after the steps attempted that I listed in the question).
I attempted loading the registry keys for the print spooler from a working Windows 7 machine (see comment from "WindowsAdminGuru") and rebooting the computer, but there was no evident change and I don't think that was the solving factor.
What did make a difference was twofold:
First, I followed the steps listed here to:
- Stop the print spooler (which was actually already stopped) through Windows-R -> cmd -> services.msc -> print spooler -> stop.
- Delete all files from the three directories
C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86
,
C:\Windows\system32\spool\printers
, and
C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\x64
, although in my case there were only files present in the third of these, x64
.
- Start the print spooler (from the window which I already had open, but which was accessed through Windows-R -> cmd -> services.msc -> print spooler -> start.)
This made a change, and I was then able to download the drivers from the manufacturer and install the printer again. (The driver didn't show up in "Windows Update," which froze, but I successfully downloaded it through Google Chrome and ran the installer/setup wizard with no trouble.)
But, although I successfully got a test page printed, weird things continued to happen:
Three printers showed up in the "Printers and Devices" window, two duplicates of the printer we wanted, plus a "Fax" version of the same printer name but with a different icon. None of them worked. When I tried to print from Notepad, I got a different error and then the print spooler quit (and all the printers disappeared from the list). I'd kept services.msc open and I tried starting it, but it quit again.
On one of these tries I got error 1067. Googling that, I found and followed directions to:
- Stop the print spooler (which was already stopped)
- Remove every registry key from hkey_local_machine -> system -> currentcontrolset -> control -> print -> providers, except for "Internet Print Provider" and "LanMan Print Services" (which in my case were the only two there)
- Remove every registry key from hkey_local_machine -> system -> currentcontrolset -> control -> print -> printers. This had one entry, which was the printer we'd been having so much trouble with! I removed it.
- Restart the print spooler (from services.msc which I still had open).
Print spooler didn't die again this time.
Next I went to the "Add Printer" dialogue, which also didn't die (so far so good!) and clicked "Add local printer" (Note: The "Add network printer" option was not present at all!), then "Use an existing port," chose the standard TCP/IP port already listed that the printer was on, then received a choice:
It said that the printer driver was already installed, and I had the choice to use the installed driver, or reinstall the driver. I chose "reinstall the driver." That took several minutes.
With that completed, the printer is now working perfectly with no hitches. :)
Best Answer
According to the sentence you provided "So I used this tutorial to add it back: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/print-pdf-windows/"
we can see "But don’t worry: Microsoft did eventually add the feature to Windows 10, and now it should be activated by default".
As everyone else has said, Windows 7 didn't offer this option. We'll need to install something (a new version of Office or a third party app) to get this feature. Or, of course, if we really like Windows 10's print to PDF option, we could offer to upgrade them to 10.
If we really had Windows 7, it's more likely that either Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) was installed or there was some third-party PDF creator installed at some point. One of the better free "print to PDF" utilities is CutePDF Writer: http://cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
We can download it right from Ninite. https://ninite.com/
Reference:
Microsoft Print to PDF Printer not showing Windows 7
Microsoft Windows PDF Printer Windows 7