Common Causes of Printer Errors

Printer errors may occur due to several reasons, such as:

• Printer not connected properly to the computer.
• Problems with the Print Spooler service.
• Printer driver conflicts or incompatible driver.
• Registry Errors and malware infections.

This article investigates some of the common printer errors and elaborates on procedures that you can perform to resolve these problems.

Error Message: “Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)”

Drivers are used to establish communication between software programs and hardware devices on your computer. Windows driver errors usually occur when a condition arises that prevents this communication.

For instance, code 37 errors, such as the one listed above, occur when either your device is not correctly connected to the computer or has a faulty device driver.

If the code 37 error occurs when you are trying to use your printer, first ensure that the printer cable is connected properly both to the printer and the PC. Also, ensure that the printer is powered on. If everything is fine, then the problem might be with the driver of the printer. To fix this, you may either have to update or uninstall the existing driver and reinstall it to fix the error.

To do this, at Start > Run, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter. On the Hardware tab of the System Properties dialog box, select the Device Manager button. In the Device Manager window, locate your printer, and double-click on it. Next, on the Driver tab, select the Update Driver button to install the updated driver files or select the Uninstall button to remove the current driver.

Error Message: “Spoolsv.exe - Application Error
The instruction at "0x77fcc2c0" referenced memory at "0x00000000".
The memory could not be written.”

This Spoolsv.exe error occurs when a large number of .SHD and .SPD printer spooler files accumulate in the printer’s spool folder. You can resolve this error by cleaning up the spooler folder. To do this, perform the steps listed below:

1. At Start > Run, type Services.msc and press Enter.
2. Right-click on the Print Spooler services in the Services management console window, and select the Stop command.
3. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers printer spool folder.
4. Select all files contained in this folder and delete them.
5. Now, browse to the temp folder and delete all unnecessary files from it.
6. Finally, open the Services management console window again and restart the Print Spooler service.

Error Message: "Could Not Find the File Hpzr3207.dll on the HP CD".

The Hpzr3207.dll is part of HP all-in-one printer drivers and the Hpzr3207.dll error occurs when you try to install this driver on your computer. Conflicts between the language of the driver you are installing and the regional settings of your computer are the main cause behind this error. So, you can resolve it by ensuring that the language of the driver and your regional settings match.

There are two methods to do this. The first method requires you to open the Control Panel, select the Regional and Language Options option and then change the regional and language settings of your computer to match the language of the printer driver. After you have done this, you must try to reinstall the driver.

If changing the regional setting does not fix the error, open the HP Website that caters to your region or country, and download the driver in the language of your computer. Installing this driver should resolve the error.

Many Windows driver errors and hardware-related errors may also occur due to registry problems and malware infections. Therefore, it is a good idea to run a registry scan using a registry cleaner tool to detect and repair registry errors and to perform a full system scan using an updated antivirus and antispyware tool to ensure that your system is free of all malware information.