Windows Vista Printer cannot read registry key

Dell AIO 926 Printer (Windows Vista Ult-Dell Inspiron 9400) Printer has
stopped working. In event viewer found message - "The print spooler failed to
open an existing printer because it could not read the configuration
information from the registry key S-1-5-18\Printers\Connections. The print
spooler could not open the registry key. This can occur if the registry key
is corrupt or missing "

Any help would be most appreciated.

 

Try reinstalling

Try reinstalling the printer.

 

Tried that twice - no luck.
Got following message from Microsoft - " this error is unrelated to your problem. "

--

Windows Printing Team


That's all - no advice!

Seamus Halford.

 

is this USB by chance?

Is this a USB printer by chance? I don't recall seeing this registry error thing but I have heard Vista has problems keeping USB printers attached across boots. The only other thing I could suggest following on the registry angle(if you haven't done it already) is uninstall then use a Registry scrubber like CCleaner before reinstalling. For some reason certain applications seem to hose their registry entries when there's the slightest glitch. For example when I used Nero 6.x I always put a blank DVD or CD in the drive and waited for it to stop accessing before bringing up Nero. If I got a blank it couldn't read it would hang. When I killed nero.exe to get the disc out, then I had to uninstall Nero, clean the registry and reinstall(needless to say I use Imgburn now.)

Anyway it might be good to give more details in case somebody more printer savvy reads your post. All that good machine make & model, printer, connection if you have any Vista updates or fixpacks etc..