I have a Windows 7 desktop at my office. There is a Dell MFP2335dn network printer installed on the dekstop. The printer worked fine for me (in that I could print from my desktop) some time back, but recently I have not been able to print. When I submit a print job, it stays in the queue for a long time and nothing gets printed. When I check the status of the printer in "Devices and Printers," it says "Offline."
I removed the printer installed on my desktop, and tried to install the drivers downloaded from Dell's website, but still get the same problem.
The printer is on, connected to network and ready. My computer can see the printer if I type its address — http://192.168.96.54 — in my browser. There I can see that its status is "Ready."
What do I have to do to print?
Best Answer
You have established that your printer is online, and can be connected to across the network and a web-browser. That's excellent.
The next step is making sure your Windows device for this printer is configured properly.
What you need to do is open the "Printer Properties" dialog for the printer in question (Start --> Devices and Printers --> right-click on printer, choose "Printer Properties")
Then, choose the Ports tab, and make sure that the port with the checkmark next to it, correctly represents the network address that your printer is at.
Rebooting and restarting your computer, printer and/or print-spooler, or upgrading the printer memory should not affect this setting (and if they do, I would start to question whether your printer was set to use DHCP, or had other even more arcane problems).
In case your network is using DHCP for printers, then it may make sense to set the port for your Windows 7 printer to a DNS name instead of an address, so that if/when it changes in the future, your computer will be able to resolve the name to an address.