A Customer wanted me to install a new dymo printer that he had purchased.

It seems easy enough… just like installing a printer.

So I run the CD installer. It gets to the point where it installs the driver.

At this point, I get distracted for a few minutes, and when I get back, it says click next to complete the installation. It then asks that the printer get plugged in, but it then completes, saying it couldn’t detect the printer.

Once the install is complete, I close the setup window, only to find there is a driver installation window behind it… waiting for me to click “next”… I thought most printers would somehow force windows to complete this stage… obviously not in this case.

I start the dymo software, print a simple label, but I get a print error (with no hint as to the cause).

I restart the PC, but no go.

I take a closer look at the printer settings.

Everything looks normal. Out of habit, under advanced properties, I change the spool setting to “start printing after last page is spooled”… Its a habit I started a long time ago, when PCs were still quite slow: sometimes, the printer would process data from the PC, faster than the PC could deliver. If the printer emptied the spool queue, then it would think it was finished, and would go back to sleep… in the meantime the PC would finally add some more data to the spool queue… but the printer would think this data was a new print job… and the result was usually be either lost data, or paper wasted in printing hieroglyphics.

Anyway, I digress…

I try removing and reinstalling the software, but no go.

I eventually decide to follow the mostly useless printer troubleshooter (under the printers help menu).

As I make my way through the wizard, I decide to change the spool setting back to “print immediately”.

soon after that, the printer suddenly springs back to life.

It looks like the problem was a combination of factors, partly due to the spool settings, and partly due to a failure in the installation.