No printer will work with my laptop

[kirus]

I have bought 3 printers for my laptop and none of them will work. I believe the problem is my laptop. I always get an error message saying that the "printer will not print" or something to that degree.

What can I do? I have installed and re-installed all the drivers for printer from their company websites etc.

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 that is 1 year old.

 

[amdskip]

What printer is it? Post the exact error message and we'll help you out.

 

[kirus]

HP Photosmart 7260

Whenever I try to install the printer, I get the error "Invalid Command Line Argument. Consult Windows Installer SDK for detailed command line help" during installation. How do I fix this?

 

[John]

[*]Were all 3 the same printer? Maybe you should switch to Canon.
[*]Did you set it as the default printer?
[*]Put the HP cd in and run the uninstall.bat file > reboot
[*]Create a new user account > log off current user > log onto new > install printer

 

[corkyg]

Are you running a firewall such as Kerio or Zone Alarm?

 

[Slikkster]

That error has to do with using special characters in your company name when you are asked for that information. Here's the list of illegal characters:

This error can occur if the Company Name that was entered during installation contains any of the following invalid characters (* ^ % $ # ~ ! ` @ ^ + \ | > < ? : ; ' " {} [] =).

However, if you aren't inputting any special characters when prompted, it could very well be just a hosed "Windows Installer" issue. Happens quite frequently.

I would run the Windows Installer CleanUp utility from Microsoft. When you run it, choose any/all of the installation programs relating to the printers you are trying to install, and let the cleanup utility do its thing. Reboot when it's done and try the install again.

Here's the page from Microsoft explaining the CleanUp program. The download is at the bottom of the page:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301