Vista - All Printers are Offline

We have Dell Latitude E5500 laptop computers, a network router and a Panasonic DP-3010 copier/printer/fax machine.

Things have been working well for months -- except a while ago I lost my ability to print. So, I found an application whereby I typed "RUN" and then "services.msc", found the print spool, hit the right click and choose restart. That worked and things were OK for months.

Over the weekend, we all lost our ability to print. All of our printers are now "offline," and the above application does not work.

None of us are "computer literate."

Can anyone help us?

Thank you in advance,

Danielle

Could you give us some system specs and include what router you have...
Are they connected wirelessly or via cable?
Did you have an automated updtae of your printer driver?

Let us know and we'll see what we can do for you...
Sorry we were slow to react but some people are off on holidays I think...

Many thanks to you for your reply -- no apologies necessary for the delay. We are grateful for your help.

We have a D-Link DIR-615 Draft 802.11 N basic Wireless N Router. (Sorry if this sounds stupid; I'm typing it off of the box.)

We can connect to the router via a cable but generally we use the wireless connection unless it goes down and we have to plug the cables into our laptops. We can only connect to the copier/printer/fax machine via the router/wireless connection.

As for system specs, if I understand you, we have Microsoft Windows Vista Business, version 6.0.6000 service pack 1 build 6001, Dell Latitude E5500 laptop computers, and system type X86-based PCs. (I found that on the "system information" icon on the start button. Is there anything else there that you need? I'm sorry that I'm so new at this.)

I do believe that my print spooler is set to automatically update. I found "services.msc" and then found the print spooler application -- under "start up type" it says "Automatic." Also, under recovery, it is set to restart on the first and second failure. Of course, as you can tell by this email, I have NO idea what I'm talking about . . . .

In a totally crazy attempt yesterday (where I'm surprised I didn't do some irreversible damage), I tried a "system restore" back to last week when things were working. Just because I'm a little bit wreckless. Probably shouldn't have done that, but I was desperate. Funny thing is that is would reset the printer to "Idle" from "Offline" UNTIL I went to print something. Then it would kick it back to "Offline." Don't know if that bit of informtion helps you with the problem or just tells you that I shouldn't be let anywhere near computers . . . . but there it is!

Again, my many, many thanks to you for getting back to me and trying to help us with this horrible problem. We're trying to run a small business and it's completely frustrating when something like this happens.

We appreciate your reaching out.

Danielle