LPT driver broke in 1511

For anyone using the parallel port on their computer for a printer or other device like a lot of restaurants use the printer option, the driver has been broken on the 1511 update.

Workarounds

Enable Legacy PNP devices in the port properties in device manager.

or

disable and reable the port in device manager

or

create a log on script that disables and enables the port using devcon.exe from Windows Driver Kit.

The workaround lasts as long as you dont reboot, if you do the workaround has to be re-applied.

More detail in this thread http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...90c24a6?page=2

banger said:

For anyone using the parallel port on their computer for a printer or other device like a lot of restaurants use the printer option, the driver has been broken on the 1511 update.

I certainly wished I had been aware of this before upgrading my father's computer to Windows 10. The upgrade implements the 1511 update now, so it has this problem. I had assumed it was a problem with the drivers for the printer. instead.

Anyway, if you want to reset the LPT port using the Device Manager each time you boot your computer, probably the easiest way to do it is to go to the "Resources" tab for the LPT port in the Device Manager and un-check, then check (or visa-versa) the "Use automatic settings" toggle, then click "OK". To make it easier on my father, I implemented the script provided by DAC324 in the page banger linked to in the previous post. In my case, the script was as follows:

@echo offcd /d %~dp0
devcon disable *PNP0400
timeout /t 1 > nul
devcon enable *PNP0400

I obtained devcon.exe by downloading and installing the Windows 10 Driver Kit (WDK). The file was saved in one of the subfolders of the "tools" folder. As DAC324 suggested, I scheduled the script to run upon Windows login. It seems to work so far.