My Printer Missing From the ‘Devices and Printers’ Section. What To Do?

Is your Printer Missing from the Devices and Printers section and you are unable to find it? Well! This is a very common problem to occur with the printers. Fortunately, you can troubleshoot this problem with some simple steps. In this post, we are going to share some simple troubleshooting guidelines that can help you fix the printer missing error. 

Printer Missing from the ‘ Devices and Printers’ section: Troubleshooting Steps To Follow 

Before you follow the below-mentioned troubleshooting steps, you can either ‘Back Up the Registry’ or ‘Create a System Restore Point’: 

• From the Start menu, click on the ‘Search’ button and type ‘Regedit’ in the search box. 
• Hit the Enter button, this will open the ‘Registry’. 
• After this, navigate to the following: 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace

• Right-click on the Name Space>>New Key. 
• Name the key as:

• This is the CLSID for the “Printer” folder. 
• Now, in the ‘Right’ pane, you have to edit the value of ‘Defaults’ to the ‘Printers’. 
• Exit “Regedit” and restart the computer and check if it works. 

Run the Printer Troubleshooter 

You can run the printer troubleshooter to fix this problem. To launch the troubleshooter,  follow the guidelines below: 

• Right-click on your windows ‘Start’ menu. 
• Go to the Settings, and click on the ‘Update and Security’ option.
• Click on the Troubleshoot.
• In the ‘Troubleshoot’ section, go to the “Get Up and Running” option and click on the “Printers”.
• After that, ‘Run the Troubleshooter’. 
• Once, you are done, restart your computer. 

Hopefully, this will help you to fix the printer problem and it will appear in the ‘Devices and Printers’ section. If your problem is still not resolved, proceed with the next troubleshooting steps.

Update the Printer Driver 

The corrupted or outdated printer drivers could also be the reason due to which your printer may not appear in the ‘Devices and printers’ section. Thus, you need to update the drivers. For updating the printer drivers, you can visit your printer manufacturer website. Here are the steps to follow: 

• Visit the Printer Manufacturer website. 
• Enter your printer details like printer name and model number. 
• Download the drivers for your device. 

If you are unable to download the printer drivers manually, you can also download them automatically using the Driver Easy tool.  This tool will select the latest printer drivers available and download them on your device. 

The aforementioned guidelines can help you fix the “My Printer Missing From the ‘Devices and Printers section” problem on your device. The mentioned guidelines are very simple and effective to troubleshoot the problem. However, if you are not able to fix the error, you can contact the experts and take their advice to troubleshoot the issue. The professionals can provide you complete assistance in fixing the problem and also make sure that you have the best printing experience.