I'm sure the name is already taken, but "Murphy's Law" would be a more accurate description for my life right now than "Just Bloggled," which was my sad attempt at being creative with the whole "I'm just boggled by..." phrase. Actually, both phrases fit right now. I'm just boggled and hence bloggled by the fact that, every time I try to do something as simple as reinstall a printer driver, Murphy's Law has to take effect and turn simplicity into brain surgery.I stayed up to 2 a.m. last night trying to uninstall and reinstall my printer driver. I started at 6 p.m. By the time CSI came around at 9 p.m., I was in a royally foul mood; I still am. Ordinarily, the day after a new CSI, I would be writing a post about it, especially considering this one left me wanting to shout "I told you so" at all those fans who thought things were going to be all rosy for Grissom and Sara for the next eight episodes. However, I'm reserving my opinion until I'm no longer suffering from sleep deprivation. I'm so mad at the world right now that, if I didn't know better, I would think that I had a seriously bad case of PMS. Of course, the timing's too off to blame it on a monthly hormonal fluctuation, so I can only blame it on my computer and printer instead.
Anyway, I only took a break from computer madness for CSI. I then started back to working on the computer and printer at 10 p.m., watching Abby's farewell to ER out of the corner of my eye. I quit at 2 a.m., got up this morning, and continued my luckless plight from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m, at which point I decided to take a shower and go to the Dollar Tree to buy a new USB cord. I came back, plugged in the new cord, and worked on the computer and printer to around 4 p.m, when I got a semi-resolution to my electronic woes.
Seriously, the unistallation and reinstallation should have been simple. In theory all I had to do was go to Add/Remove programs, select my printer software and driver from the list of program, run the uninstaller program, restart the computer when prompted, place the driver disk in the DVD-ROM drive, select the "setup.exe" file on the desk, and run the installer program. Bada bing. Bada boom. Printer problems begone.
Of course, it wasn't that easy. The uninstaller program crashed halfway through, leaving bits and pieces of the driver on the computer, just not the parts that I wanted. I couldn't complete the uninstall because HP had now disappeared from Start/Programs and from Add/Remove. I tried putting in the HP disk, but I couldn't get to the uninstaller that way either. Not knowing what else to do, I tried to just reinstall the driver, even though it was only partially uninstalled. I hoped that the reinstallation would simply write over the corrupted parts. It didn't. In fact, the reinstallation crashed halfway through, too.
I went to HP's web site. I downloaded the company's Scrubber tool, what you're supposed to use when you can't uninstall the software and driver the convential way. Well, it worked all right, a little too well because when I went to reinstall everything that went with my HP PSC 1210xi, I could only get the software to install. Everytime I got to the "Plug in your printer" part, all hell broke loose on my computer. The Found New Hardware Wizard kept popping up, which it never did before. I tried clicking out of the window. It would just pop up again. I tried following the directions and using it to install the driver. Even when the wizard told me installation was succesful, it would pop up again five seconds later. The pop ups would continue and continue and continue some more until eventually I would get so frustrated that I'd just run the Scrubber program and start all over.
I spent some time searching online for solutions. I was told to deactivate certain things in services.msc. I tried all of the suggested deactivations and reactivations. None of them worked. I was also told to install the driver in safe mode. I tried my best to do that as well, but apparently I'm not the administrator of my own personal computer. I don't know who the administrator is, but if he's out there and reading this post, he needs to give me a call.
What else? Let's see. I tried System Restore twice. My computer went through all the motions of restoring the settings to an earlier restore point, but at the end of said motions, I was told that a restoration could not happen. I tried ScanDisk. I tried Windows Update. I tried virus and spyware scans. I tried CCleaner. I tried everything that I could think of, but I still got the same result: a message that said that the installation of my hardware failed. Great...
Isn't one of the definitions of insanity that you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result each time? If it is, I guess that I am insane, as far as this computer and the electronic piece of poo that passes as my all-in-one printer are concerned. There is some good news, even in the midst of my insanity. I finally got the printer to print. Apparently, if you let the Add New Hardware Wizard run seven or eight times in a row, it will eventually install the printer driver. However, the printer icon in my system tray still says that the printer is disconnected, which is the error that originally prompted my first uninstall. Don't ask me how a printer can be disconnected and still print because I won't be able to answer you. I don't get it either. However, I'm not about to look a gift horse, however bizarre that horse looks, in the mouth. The printer is printing, and I didn't have to reinstall Windows XP. That's all I care about at the moment, that and one good night of sleep.
Yep. I should have named this blog "Murphy's Law," or, even better, "Staci's Law: It Makes Murphy's Law Look Like a Field Day." It's a little long but entirely accurate.
