Computer Printer Repair

Here's how to fix Windows 7 Printer Error 0x0000007e if you also notice that your "Language for non-Unicode" setting are correct:

1. Download the latest Windows 7 printer drivers (be sure to choose x32 or x64 depending on your machine) from the manufacturers website. I am installing an HP Laserjet 5550N in my case, and I downloaded the latest PCL6 drivers for Windows 7 x64 and extracted them on my macine.

2. Go to the extraction folder and run the setup.exe or install.exe program. This part was new to me but very slick... the driver installation loaded and asked me to provide the location of the printer I wanted to install.

3. Choose to install a "network printer" and select it from the list. Hit next.

4. At this point you can either select to find updated driver from Windows Update or choose "have disc" to manually select the *.inf file that was extracted via the driver download. I actually chose the Windows Update option for fun and grins, and it searched, located, and properly installed the correct drivers for my machine automatically.

5. Print a test page once you complete the rest of the installation screens. Note: Depending on your installation package, you may have slightly different setup screens but I suspect that the steps would be very similar.

So, in reality I never used the drivers that I downloaded since Windows Update found them for me. The end result is this though... you can add a network printer that is hosted on Windows Server 2003 to a Window 7 machine if you install the drivers locally but specify that you want to use the network printer (select the printer from the list or provide it's IP address).

I still haven't found a way to actually host the Windows 7 drivers on the Windows 2003 print server though, but with this fix you don't need to. You can still install and print to the network printer with the drivers installed locally. If I'm not mistaken, when you install a printer from a printer server the drivers are still installed locally... it's just the print server is your driver source rather than downloading and extracting the same drivers locally. So as I see it, my method is the "same difference"