USB label printer & Win 10 Pro...

[peteb2]

I'm desperate for a reason & fix. I have a USB Brother PT-E550W cable label machine that has worked perfectly for around half the year so far when connected to a PC my laptop. Win10 simply made it a "Virtual printer port...Brother PT-E550W". Now for some dumb cause the PC (laptop) detects i've plugged in the USB cable & powered the unit on & the silly thing identifies the printer as a COM8 device & puts it in the Ports (COM & LPT) making it useless. If i blow away anything & everything i can find with reference to this label printer, plug & power up, Win10 just sees it's there & installs it all again as COM8 and not a USB virtual printer port...

If i plug the labeler into any other PC for the first time ever (Win10 Pro) no problem, in seconds its a USB00x "Virtual printer port..." as expected.

So something bordering on silliness has obviously occurred, probably when i needed to USB to RS232 adapter for another external device & installed a driver for that device but i can't prove it. Brother's support website offer downloadable driver & updates, driver uninstallers etc & their FAQ hasn't offered a solution. Around this time there'd been a Win10 update which the laptop did without any trouble but the labeler was likely connected & powered on... .

So am i screwed or can i use regedit to break something in the Registry (whatever) is seeing this printer & making it a COM device? I've wasted hours on this with zero positive advice other than an oh bugger.. It's the fact the printer is a label machine & so a tool for 100s of things i do in electronics & not just an ordinary office laser printer... & yes i can WiFi with this label printer to transfer databases of pre-designed labels etc but i'd also like to use it USB with my laptop...    It should not be this hard! Any ideas appreciated indeed.

[PA0PBZ]

... probably when i needed to USB to RS232 adapter for another external device & installed a driver for that device ...

Did you try to uninstall that driver?

[peteb2]

Certainly have. As i said i've tried blowing away everything which is all i could find on the Microsoft help sites with the instructions & procedure for USB printer issues.... Brother has an uninstall .exe to remove the official printer driver.exe for the PT-E550W downloadable from their support site for this label printer. It's as if something else (another driver) that is generic that just happens to see the same USB chipset (whatever) that's used by the PT-E550W as valid & instructs Win10 to auto install as COM8 configuration for Ports(COM & LPT).

I did some work a while ago that included having to use libusb-win32 driver to make a 32bit device compatible with the 64bit PC. Maybe there's a starting point there?

[coromonadalix]

Lately Msoft as issued  printer drivers updates and messed up a few things

Normally you should block any drivers updates in Win10, it will help stabilise windows and attached peripherals,   there is some nirsoft utilities to clean and or remove unused com ports if i recall

Windows suck real bad in the device manager,  it will show active com port even when the devices are removed  ....

Some softwares hate com prots higher than com4, in the device manager on the com port(s) check if they are set at 115200 bauds, its 9600 by default and some software may hang if the baud spped doesn't match ...

You could use hibit uninstaller portable, it could help get rid of the software and registry entries ??

You can intercept the driver installation before clicking install    by checking in the user local temp folder  the extracted driver(s)  package  ??

[mon2]

Right mouse click on this function and select uninstall the driver AND select the checkbox to DELETE the driver. Keep repeating this procedure till the usb device is a question marked function which will demand a driver to install.

At this point, this box will appear like the other 'virgin' computer.

Then apply the proper driver for pairing.

[peteb2]

Heads up. Finally revisited this problem now that it's a quiet Sunday evening... (i believe its over 2weeks now). FOR THE RECORD my fix (HOORAY) was to use Windows Device Manager and chased the poor printer around as i kept on Uninstalling it from anything as in Ports (COM & LPT),  libusb-32 even USB controllers... I did this around 15 damn times, always ticking the remove driver option & restarting the PC (it's very fast to boot up) & then re-plugging the printer & powering it on. Then suddenly on the umpteenth try, some unusual stuff happened the minute the USB chimes dinged off & Windows stuck it automatically in the Printers as a Virtual printer port USB001...  DUH! What a massive waste of time & THANKS to all who offered advice. I can only assume the problems began when i used libsub-32 installer for another generic (my Logic Analyzer) & somehow the Brother  Label maker ended up compromised into a shambles of a history (going by the Events record)... Phew glad that's over...

[Ed.Kloonk]

It shouldn't have been that hard for the computer to accomplish that.

I'm glad you got it sorted and am glad you came back with the update report. Now I want to know what you plan to do for fun for this next fortnight.