Actual Reality

Symptoms: Print jobs don’t delete from the print queue after they are finished. Restarting the computer will allow the next job to print, after which the queue stops again.

Steps to reproduce: Install Lexmark’s printer software on a Windows Vista computer. Try to print more than one document. Get ticked off because Lexmark doesn’t have any solution on their website.

Printers affected: The list goes on and on—models X1270, X5130, X5150, X6100, X6150, and several others all seem to be affected. In general, if your printer seems to be having the symptoms above, then this solution might work for you. I have only tested this solution with the X6150, and your mileage may vary.

Solution:

Phase 1: Eliminate all Lexmark software/drivers

1. Disconnect the USB cable to the printer and open up the Control Panel. Go to Programs and Features and find the Lexmark software for your printer. Uninstall it. If it gives you any problems, try opening up Printers (under Control Panel), right-click on the Lexmark printer, and select “Cancel All Documents”. If they don’t delete right away, restart your computer. You may need to connect the printer again to finish deleting the jobs from the queue. Make sure you disconnect the printer before trying to uninstall the Lexmark software again.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Go to Start, type in “cmd” (without the quotes), right click on “cmd.exe” and choose “Run as Administrator”. Type in “printmanagement.msc” and press Enter.
4. Go to Action->Manage Drivers. If any Lexmark drivers are listed, click on each one and click “Remove…” In the window that appears, choose “Remove driver and driver package”. When you’ve finished removing any drivers, you can close the Print Management window.
5. At this point, we should be rid of any leftover Lexmark crap. If you’re feeling extra cautious, you could go through and check your Program Files for any remnants, and maybe reboot your computer again.

Phase 2: Reinstall drivers, the right way

1. Okay, now this is the important part. We want to reinstall the printer drivers without using the Lexmark installer. First, download the appropriate drivers for your printer from Lexmark’s website. Make sure you choose the Vista drivers and also make sure you choose x32 or x64 drivers, depending on which version of Vista you are running. As of writing, this page allows you to locate the drivers for your printer. Lexmark’s download descriptions tend to be a bit confusing, so read carefully.
2. Once you’ve downloaded the correct installer, go ahead and run it, but don’t go through the installation! When the installer starts, cancel out of it. If everything has gone well, we should be left with a new folder located at C:\drivers\printer\[insert your model here].
3. Now we’re ready to plug in the printer. When you plug in the printer, Windows will try to locate the drivers for it. There are two possible outcomes: Windows searches Windows Update and finds the correct driver, in which case we need do nothing more; and the second outcome, Windows can’t find the correct driver, in which case we need to point it to the one we downloaded.
4. At the first “Found New Hardware” screen, choose “Locate and install driver software”. If you are asked whether to search online, choose “Yes, search online this time only”. If the window “Windows couldn’t find driver software…” appears, choose “Browse my computer for driver software” and navigate to C:\drivers\printer\[insert your model here]. Make sure that “Include subfolders” is checked. Windows should then recognize and install the driver from that location.
5. If everything goes successfully, you should now have a working printer. Try to print out a few documents and make sure it is working. If so, congratulations! You’ve managed to get your printer working with Vista. If not, read on for some more troubleshooting advice.

Still having trouble?

If your printer still isn’t working at this point, there are a few more things to try:

• Disable the Lexmark printer spooler service and make Window’s spooler the default. To do this, press Ctrl-Alt-Del and choose “Start Task Manager”. Go to the Services tab, and click on the Services button at the bottom right. Scroll through the list and see if you can find a service called “lexbce” or any other reference to Lexmark. If you find such a service, right-click on it, go to Properties, and change the Startup Type to “Disabled”. Next go to Start, type in cmd, right-click on “cmd.exe” and choose “Run as Administrator”. In the window that appears, type “sc config spooler depend= rpcss” (without the quotes, with a space after depend= ), and press Enter. Restart your computer and try printing again.
• Make sure that bidirectional support is enabled. To do this, open Control Panel and go to Printers. Right-click on the printer, and choose “Properties”. Go to the Ports tab, and make sure the box is checked next to “Enable bidirectional support”. Restart your computer and try printing again.
• Restart the print spooler after each job. You can do this by going to Start, typing in “services.msc” and pressing Enter. Find “Print Spooler” on the list, right-click and choose Restart.
• Disable your anti-virus and then try printing. McAfee in particular seems to cause communication problems with certain printers. If the anti-virus is the culprit, I’d advise tweaking its settings until it works, or better yet, switching to an anti-virus that actually works (like Microsoft Security Essentials or Avira).

One-Click Fix?

Sergio Gois has kindly written up a batch file that stops the spooler and any Lexmark services, deletes any spooled jobs, and restarts the spooler. Paste the following into Notepad and save with a .bat extension:

sc stop spooler
ping localhost -n 2
sc stop lxbk_device
ping localhost -n 2
taskkill /im lxbk* /f /t
ping localhost -n 2
del /q c:\Windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*
ping localhost -n 2
sc start lxbk_device
ping localhost -n 2
sc start spooler

When the printer starts acting up, right-click on the .bat file and choose “Run as Administrator”. Once it has finished running, try printing again.

Conclusion

If you’re still having trouble, then you’re probably stuck with working around your problem (restart your computer after each print) or buying a different printer.

If you have a chance, feel free to call Lexmark and complain. They’ve done a crappy job with their drivers, and haven’t even addressed this and other problems on their website. Even though they claim that their printers are “Windows Vista Compatible”, the printers don’t work at all or only work after some workaround. Either Lexmark needs to fix its software/drivers so that they work out of the box, or they need to stop calling their printers “Vista Compatible”.

If you know of a fix that I haven’t mentioned, please tell me about it in the comments below and I’ll make sure to add it to this guide.