Windows Vista Every time I turn computer on, my printer is offline and won't change back!

We're running Vista on a few of the computers in our office. With my boss' computer, every time she turns it back on in the morning, the printer is offline. We've tried to reconnect and refresh it, but it usually freezes. It's gotten to the point that we have to delete it and Add A Printer every morning! It will work fine all day, but as soon as we either restart it, or turn it back on the next morning, we hit the same wall.

The printer is a big old Toshiba e-studio 35 running off our network (which is hooked through our server). A Toshiba tech guy gave me a new driver for it that he said should work with Vista, but I don't know if our problem is driver related or just part of the fun of running an 8 year old printer off Vista. We do plan on upgrading our printer, but as our lease isn't up until February, I'm really hoping that I don't have to Add A Printer five days a week for the next three months!

Anyone have any idea what could be going on here? I'm stumped, and our Toshiba guy hasn't got a clue

Thanks for your time,
Amanda

 

In control panel, right click on the printer and make sure the printer is not set to use offline. If you right click and you see an option "use printer online" then it is set to offlline.

You can try turning off SNMP for the printer port (I think you'll need to do this when the printer is online) and see if that helps.


Mitch

 

We've been doing that. I right-click, hit "Use Printer Online ", but it never switches back over, no matter how many times I select this option

 

If you can, try adding the printer as "local" and install the drivers on the Vista computer.

 

I gave this a try, but it does the same thing. Really odd, huh? As soon as we turned the computer on again this morning, it was back to Offline status, and won't change back. I just re-added the printer again.

In the meantime, I've also re-downloaded the original driver from the Toshiba website, thinking that maybe the driver was causing the problem, or it became corrupted or something. It doesn't seem to have helped either, unfortunately

 

I think you might be out of luck unless Toshiba make actual Vista drivers for the printer (which I don't think they will do with such an old model).

 

Mine done this with a brand new HP. I have to leave it on all the time to keep it from dropping off the network. The only way I can get it to recognize the printer when I turn it on is disconnect it from the switch then reconnect. What a pain. I just leave it on all the time.