HP 255dw laser jet fails to install on PC

I have just purchased a HP Color Laser Jet 225dw printer. On my Win 10 Laptop it installed no problem and appears as an available printer in programs and I have successfully printed from it. (By the by My ubuntu box and my raspberry pi both found it on the network and automatically installed it.) But on my PC (Win 10 version 22H2) the install keeps failing with the message "Driver is Unavailable".

This is despite the fact that I have manually installed the drivers and Printer Server Properties Drivers reports under installed drivers the presence of "HP Color LaserJet M255-M256 PCL -6 V4"

I have tried the usual remove the printer, switch everything off and back on again but all with no success. I have also tried with simple windows add printer and HP Smart installations but nothing seems to work.

Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Yertiz

Mine is an ancient (2012) HP with scanner in perfect state and with refurbished cartridges (official ones aren't made anymore) that has USB and RJ45. It's connected via USB to one computer and via Ethernet to the router where all computers are connected. The drivers ask you how is it connected (so if USB connection failed in the Win7 computer to which it's connected via USB -nearly impossible-, I'd lose the printer there although the computer has physical access through Ethernet, I would have to reinstall it). It has official drivers for Win 7 and 10, the latter work under Win 11.

If the installation gets tough (this is for any printer), it's like playing with a slot machine but much much much much more messy. The only clear thing is if you get the combination that wins or not. If you get it, you forget the trick or you aren't able to identify one.

My last session of this style ended with the printer installed twice under Windows 10, working fine. I'd describe one as the official installation from the Windows viewpoint, the compliant device controlled by Windows that can be shared etc. I don't know well this "mode" but I perceived it as necessary to get the device installed. The other is the rebel device with its own drivers (the HP ones). This is the one I use for the much richer HP interface.

Under Win 11 it ended up cleaner, although I did several (4-5) installs one over another following some logic I cannot recall. Time afterwards I deleted from my %temp% folder several GB of files generated by these Installs/attempts, approximately 1 GB each operation.

Both sessions have in common that I did not always uninstall and reinstall clean. Installing other time over the previous install might succeed. In Windows 10 I recall doing those protocols about unplugging the printer from mains etc. In 11 I cannot recall.

It is a network printer. It is connected to the network by an ethernet cable. There is no direct connection to any computer. I am trying to install it as a network printer on each computer I have. I am not trying to share an installation on one computer with another computer. So far it is successfully installed on three computers but will not install on my main Win 10 PC.

On the Win 10 PC if I run "settings-devices-printers and scanners" and click on "add a printer or scanner" windows finds the M255dw printer on the network which I can then click on and click on "Add Device". At that point I get a message saying "connecting" which after a while turns into progress bar which takes about 2 seconds to complete and then shows the message "Driver is unavailable".

It is as though the PC cannot find the driver on the internet. Defensively I am running the Windows Firewall, AVG anti virus and Malwarebytes but none of these should prevent downloading a driver.

To try to overcome the "driver unavailable" problem I used "Settings-Devices-Printers and Scanners-Print Server Properties-Drivers-Add" and then used the Add Printer Driver Wizard to manually add the driver for the M255dw.

However, the add printer wizard does not seem to search the PC to find the driver.

Is there a way to manually install a printer and point it at the installed driver?

Yertiz

Berton said:

The mention of network begs the question of the connection such as via the Ethernet or USB or Wireless. I have a LaserJet M148 connected via cable to my Wireless Router and no issues adding it to computers as a Network device.

Thanks for that. This a cable connection to the router which works fine on 3 computers but not on one.

Yertiz

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JLArranz said:

I believe I had to do the aforementioned reinstalls for having changed the computer names from their stock ones assigned by Windows to others of my taste, although I'm not sure. Under W11 I was able to print but not scan or not through the HP interface that for instance lets you scan several pages one by one and put them in the same pdf. Under W10 I could not print either.



Since the stone age I use these firewall settings (this is Win 7 but it's the same in all my computers since XP and Vista). ZA uses "Trusted" and "Public" zones with more relaxed surveillance in the former case, you can add here things that you trust. "Impresora" means "Printer". The printer has a fixed IP associated to its MAC, this is done in the router web interface (since the stone age too, what means several routers). I cannot recall if I needed to do this with the printer or just thought it's better, although (I'm 99% sure) the drivers install suggests doing this. I've added the "DHCP Server" IP on my own in some cases, and the "Localhost" one in probably all cases, w/o a concrete necessity or improvement. I believe the "Network" is put there automaticly.

I have the windows firewall running not Zone Alarm. But even if I turn the firewall off the printer still will not install.

Start the problem computer, press the Windows and "R" keys simultaneously, type or paste "services.msc" into the "Open" box and click "OK". When the services window opens, scroll down to "Function Discovery Provider Host" and "Function Discovery Resource Publication" and make sure they are running. If not, right-click them and select "Start". If they are disabled, double-click them, click on "Startup type", select "Manual", click "Apply", then click "Start", then "OK". Then try to connect to the printer.

Ben

Ben Myers said:

Start the problem computer, press the Windows and "R" keys simultaneously, type or paste "services.msc" into the "Open" box and click "OK". When the services window opens, scroll down to "Function Discovery Provider Host" and "Function Discovery Resource Publication" and make sure they are running. If not, right-click them and select "Start". If they are disabled, double-click them, click on "Startup type", select "Manual", click "Apply", then click "Start", then "OK". Then try to connect to the printer.

Ben

Thanks for the suggestion. Both FDPH and FDRP were running and set to Automatic start (Trigger) in the case of FDRP presumably because starting FDPH triggers FDRP.

I restarted them just in case and tried installing again but still get the message "Driver is Unavailable".

What is most frustrating is I know the drivers are installed on the computer. But the printer install wizard seems to be looking in the wrong place.

Is there any way of manually linking the printer to the drivers?

Yertiz