Cannot connect to network printers. Cannot create port. Cannot install any drivers.

Hi there.

I was wondering if any of you can help me out. Google and other forums have not been helpful so far and I am going insane!

Situation: Windows 2000 SP4

The title says it all. I cannot connect to any shared printers on the print server, I cannot install any local printer drivers (no matter if 2000 driver, XP driver, printer model, nothing!!) and I cannot even create a printer port as the option to do so once you go into "add printer" is greyed out. This is the only PC on the network with this problem and it cannot connect to any one of our ten networked printers.

I would like to try avoid a format re-install if possible and would also like to know what causes this.

I have even tried connecting to a shared networked printer via IP address but I get the same error, "operation could not be completed". Double clicking on the printer share results in an error along the lines of making sure the printer name is correct.

And yes the print spool service is started
And yes I am trying this with an administrator account as well

*sigh guess I have to bite the bullet and re-format :/

I am not sure if you found a solution yet but from your description I would think you recently installed software or network policy that expires users' passwords and the pc you are on has not been renewed. So when it tries to connect to the printer it errors with expired password but you dont see that errors as it only reflects on your server. Reset the username and password combo and restart the the machine. Chance the password and you should be able to connect to the networked printers.

Thanks Myrrdin for the suggestion but I bit the bullet

Reformating fixed the problem. I actually assume the registry was corrupt or something. I could not even update Antivirus as it complained that it could not find a specific file which actually did exist and was 100% the correct file_path and extension. So the PC was not a happy puppy.

Also antowan's link was close but not on the ball but thanks for that too

Never in my life have I not been able to install any in-built windows printer driver. Something was seriously wrong.

All is fine now though although the format re-install took the better part of my day