No printers installed

I have installed PDF Creator on my Windows 10 pro x64 machine, and the installation goes smoothly. But when I try to launch PDF creator in any way, I am hit with the following error message:
Title: "no printers installed"
Body: "You do not have any PDFCreator printers installed. Most likely there was a problem during the setup or the installation has been altered afterwards. Do you want to fix this by reinstalling the PDFCreator printers?"
TO which I select "yes", and after I am prompted twice for admin credentials, I receive the following:
Title:"Error"
Body: "PDFCreator was not able to repair your printers.  Please contact your administrator or the support to assist you in this problem."
I have uninstalled then reinstalled twice with the same result.  What is going on?

Hi, while this can have different reasons, the following procedure solves the problem in most cases.

1. Run Regedit and delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors\pdfcmon

2. Run cmd.exe as admin, enter the command net stop spooler

3. Run the command net start spooler

4. Run PDFCreator.exe again and let it try to fix the printer, it will often work now.

If this doesn’t fix it, please let us know and we will help you.

best regards,

Had the same error. Tried the steps explained, and it still doesn’t work.

Did you get any error messages on any of the steps?

When I run pdfcreator again after following your steps, I get “PDFCreator was not able to repair your printers.  Please contact your administrator or the support to assist you in this problem.”

Hi,

in order to find out why the printer installation is failing on your system, please run cmd.exe and navigate to the PDFCreator main folder.

Now run pritnerhelper.exe /uninstallprinter
Next run printerhelper.exe /installprinter “your printername” /portapplication "C:\Program Files\PDFCreator\ PDFCreator.exe"
Note or take a screenshot of any error messages you might get (if you don’t get any error messages, the printer should now be there).

best regards

A new cmd window pops up then disappears before I can see any errors. I can’t find how to keep the window active.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>“C:\Program Files\PDFCreator\PrinterHelper.exe” /installprinter “PDFCreator” /portapplication "C:\Program Files\PDFCreator\PDFCreator.exe"
Error:
 Message = Access to the path ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\DRIVERS\x64\PS_SCHM.GDL’ is denied.
 Source = mscorlib
 StackTrace =    at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
   at System.IO.FileStream…ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)
   at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.PrinterUtil.SaveStreamToFile(Stream stream, String fileName)
   at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.PrinterUtil.ExtractPrinterFilesWindows8(PrinterEnvironment printerEnvironment, PrinterDescriptionFileLanguage language, String printerDriverDirectory, Boolean extractPpdFile, DriverFiles& driverFiles)
   at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Win32Printer.AddPdfcreatorPrinterDriverGdi(PrinterEnvironment printerEnvironment, String driverName, PrinterDescriptionFileLanguage language, String externalPpdFile)
   at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Printer.InstallPrinter(IList1 printerNames, IWin32Printer win32Printer, String monitorName, String portName, String portApplication, String driverName, String externalPpdFile, Boolean server, ILogging logging)<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Commands.CheckCommandInstallPrinterAndExecute(IDictionary2 cmdlParams, IWin32Printer win32Printer, String monitorName, String portName, String driverName, ILogging logging)
   at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Program.Run(IDictionary`2 cmdlParams, ICommands commands, IWin32Printer win32Printer, ILogging logging)
   at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Program.Main(String[] args)
 TargetSite = Void WinIOError(Int32, System.String)

I am running everything as administrator

Hi,


this means that the file PS_SCHM.GD is either still in use by another application or it has broken permissions (so even the admin can’t overwrite it) Please check the permissions for that file, try to create a backup of it, then delete it manually and run the commands above again.

best regards,

Hi,
i have a similar problem installing version 2.3 on Windows 2008 R2 (standard version, not server)

Running the printerhelper, gives me the following error:

C:\Program Files\PDFCreator>printerhelper /installprinter “PDFCreator” /portapplication “C:\Program Files\PDFCreator\PDF
Creator.exe”

Error:
Message = The specified module could not be found
Source = PrinterHelper
StackTrace = at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Win32Printer.AddPdfcreatorPrinterMonitor(PrinterEnvironment printerEnvironment, String monitorName, String portName, String monitorDriverFileName, String programFullFileName, Boolean server)
at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Printer.InstallPrinter(IList1 printerNames, IWin32Printer win32Printer, String monitorName, String portName, String portApplication, String driverName, String externalPpdFile, Boolean server, ILogging logging) at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Commands.CheckCommandInstallPrinterAndExecute(IDictionary2 cmdlParams, IWin32Printer win32Printer, String monitorName, String portName, String driverName, ILogging logging)
at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Program.Run(IDictionary`2 cmdlParams, ICommands commands, IWin32Printer win32Printer, ILogging logging)
at pdfforge.PrinterHelper.Program.Main(String[] args)
TargetSite = Void AddPdfcreatorPrinterMonitor(pdfforge.PrinterHelper.PrinterEnvironment, System.String, System.String,System.String, System.String, Boolean)

Please, could you help me to understand the problem?

Thanks
Diego

Solved :slight_smile:

it was a problem related to the Framework loader for 64bit (Ldr64.exe), that was set in setWow mode to allow another application on the server to work.

Switched to standard mode for the installation only, then reverted back :slight_smile:

Diego

Hi Diegobarbera.
Can you explain how you did, I have the same trouble as you

Hi,
if you have a 64bit machine, maybe some program set the .netloader to force 32bit programs

try with

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\ldr64.exe set64

—> install pdfcreator

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\ldr64.exe setWow

Thanks for your reply.
Should I type that in command promt ?

I tryed … but I get the same error

I have a newer map in that directory “v4.0.30319”
Can it be this one I should use ?

ldr64 dont exist in that directory

I even tryed remove PS_SCHM.GD file but I get the same error

yes, as Administrator

in my server i had to launch “ldr64.exe setWow” in order to start a program written in 32bit

launching “ldr64 set64” revert to original 64bit loader (needed for pdfcreator printer driver)

then you can switch again to ldr64.exe setWow after installation