I recently connected an HP Photosmart printer to my computer running Windows XP. Now, every time I boot Windows the printer is re-detected and reinstalled. This means that I end up with several copies of the same printer installed. How can I prevent this from happening?

This is certainly strange behaviour, as Windows should realise that the device has not changed and should use the already installed device, rather than installing a new instance of the printer. Since Windows is reinstalling the device on every boot, this indicates that Windows cannot tell that the printer is the same on each boot, and thinks it is a new device which requires a new installation of the device. This could indicate that the configuration for the device has become corrupted within Windows. As such, we should first work through a few steps to eliminate this possible cause of the problem. To begin, we will completely uninstall the device from your computer. Disconnect the device from your computer and then restart the machine. Once the computer has restarted, go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel” and open the “Printers and Faxes” control panel. This will list all the printers currently installed on your computer. You will probably see multiple instances of the one printer (as it has been reinstalling itself on each boot). Delete all instances of the printer, which should completely clear the printer from being installed on the computer. Once this has completed, restart the computer to make sure all instances of the printer have been cleared. Then, visit the HP website (www.hp.com.au) and click the “Software & Driver Downloads” link to locate and download the latest drivers for your printer. This will ensure that the issue being experienced is not related to old, outdated, or incompatible drivers. Once the drivers have finished downloading, reinstall the printer from scratch with the freshly downloaded drivers and see whether the problem continues.

Should the problem continue after doing the clean reinstallation of the printer, and updating the printer drivers, there is not much else you can do with the printer installation on the computer to solve this problem. My next suggestion would be to try connecting the printer into a different USB port on the computer. In particular, if the printer is currently connected to a USB hub try instead to connect the printer directly into a USB port (as sometimes USB hubs can cause strange behaviour). If this resolves the problem then there was obviously something incompatible between the USB port to which the printer was originally connected and the printer itself. In this case, leave the printer connected to the USB port which works correctly and investigate why the original USB port was not working correctly. I suggest that you try connecting another USB device to the port to check whether there are any problems with the different device. If not, the printer may, for example, be drawing too much power from that port, or some other strange phenomenon, causing it not to work correctly. However, if you find there are also problems with the other device this may indicate you have a faulty USB port on the computer. In this case, you may need to have the problem further investigated by a computer technician. Alternatively, you could just not use that port.

However, if the problem continues when the printer is connected to another USB port we need to determine whether the problem is the printer itself or the computer. The simplest way to make this determination is to connect the printer to a different computer. If the problem occurs on the different computer, then the problem is related to the printer. In this case, you may need to return the printer (if still under warranty) or get a replacement printer, if the problem is bad enough that it warrants a replacement.

In the more likely scenario that the printer works fine on the other computer, the problem seems definitely related to your computer. In this case, there are some other more generic fixes which we can attempt on the computer. First, try running the System File Checker in case any of the Windows system files have become corrupted. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type ?sfc /scannow? (without the quotes) and click OK. Make sure you put the space between the “sfc” and “/scannow” parts of the command. Once this has been done click the OK button. The System File Checker utility will launch, and commence scanning your computer for any missing or corrupt Windows system files. Once it has finished the SFC utility will quit silently with no user feedback. At this point, restart the computer and check whether the problem continues.

Should you still have problems, I would recommend that you attempt a repair installation of Windows XP. Before embarking on this procedure make sure that you have a full backup of all the data you wish to keep, as data loss is a potential risk in this procedure. In fact, I would recommend that you maintain several copies of any data you wish to keep. Once you have backed-up all the data you wish to keep, put the Windows XP CD into the CD drive and restart the computer. When a message appears saying to press any key to enter setup, strike a key on your keyboard to ensure the Windows setup. Once the main setup screen loads, press ENTER to commence installing Windows. Do not press R to repair Windows and enter the recovery console, this is something completely different that we do not want to do. Agree to the licence agreement and the setup will scan for current installations of Windows. Select your current Windows XP installation and press the R key to commence the repair. Once the DOS based portion of the setup has finished the computer will reboot. Be aware, the message saying to press any key to enter setup will appear again. DO NOT press any keys, as we do not want to boot off the CD again. Instead, let the computer proceed under its own accord. The graphical portion of the Windows setup will commence to finish the repair installation. Once this has completed all your data should still be intact on the computer, and hopefully the printer problem should be resolved.