Scanner is only detected and not the printer

OK. I have a new Epson L210 printer, a multi-function printer. But whenever I connect it to my Windows 7 64-bit computer, the only detected function of the printer is the scanner. There is no installed printer. The scanner is working fine. But I couldn't print.

I tried installing the several times. I made sure that the cable is intact and the printer's power is on. It gets stuck in the printer detection.

I also tried installing the printer driver manually by clicking the Add Printer in the Devices and Printers section in the Control Panel.


I had similar issues with an Epson XP-235. It's a networked printer and Windows 10 nowadays only installs the scanner part, and you cannot print through it.

A clean removal and reinstall of the driver helps. Do the following:

  1. Remove the "printer" from the default "Devices and Printers" control panel view by right-clicking it and selecting "Remove device".
  2. Type Win+R, and enter printermanagement.msc, press Enter.
  3. In the new window, navigate to "Print Servers" > "[Your PC Name] (local)" > "Drivers" on the left side.
  4. In the list in the center part of the window, right-click and choose "Delete" for any driver sounding similar to the printer model you had installed.
  5. If you have a networked printer, you may also wanna go to "Ports" in the tree view on the left, and delete the IP-based port Windows created for it in the middle list aswell.
  6. Go back to the "Devices and Printers" control panel view, and click "Add a printer" in the command bar.
  7. Wait for it to find your printer, and then let Windows install it normally by clicking "Next". This time it should also detect the printer part of your - well - printer. Make sure to not cancel the dialog prematurely and wait for the progress bars to run full nicely.

I had a similar problem with a Canon multifunction (only the scanner could be installed and not the printer). following these steps solved it (I am not sure if all are necessary):

  1. Uninstall the device and the driver: Go to "Device Manager" find your device (Mine was initially listed as an unknown, then when I had a bad installation, it was installed only as a scanner. Right click on the device- > Properties -> Drivers -> Uninstall Device and in the next window tick "Delete the driver software".
  2. Uninstall any software related to the device. Go to "Add or Remove Programs" and uninstall any software for your device (in my case there were two).
  3. Disconnect the USB cable (and turn the device off?)- I suspect this was the critical step that I had missed the first time. Then restart windows.
  4. Install the driver provided by your device manufacturer.
  5. Connect the USB cable and turn on the device.