10. Why has my trusty printer stopped working?

QAfter installing Windows 10 my old and trusty Epson Stylus Photo R300 printer did not appear as a printer. Instead, a USB MFP (Hi Speed) was shown, with ‘Driver Unavailable’. I tried a test print and it didn’t work. According to the Epson site no drivers are required, because Windows 10 will find everything needed to install it. I can’t find the printer’s original softwareinstallation disc, but I doubt this would solve the problem anyway. Is there a simple solution that escapes me?

Douglas Forrest

AOne of Windows 10’s more infuriating habits is to tell you that things will just work automatically, then give you no help at all when they don’t. One way around this is to manually install the printer. Make sure it’s powered on and connected to your PC, then right-click the Start button and select Control Panel. Now look under ‘Hardware and Sound’ and click ‘View devices and printers’. Look in the bar at the top and you should see a link to ‘Add a printer’.

Windows 10 will now search for your printer, but if it fails to come up with the Epson Stylus R300, click the link at the bottom for ‘The printer that I want isn’t listed’. There are two options here that might help. The first one is ‘My printer is a little older. Help me find it’. Select that, click Next and wait while Windows 10 searches deeper.

If that doesn’t work, click ‘Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings’ then click Next. Make sure ‘Use an existing port’ is selected, then click Next. Click the Windows Update button to force Windows to update its list of printers. Now select Epson under manufacturer and Epson Stylus Photo R300 (M) under the ‘Printers’ heading. Click Next and you should be up and running.