Windows 7 Trouble Installing Canon Pixma MX455: Printer Not Detected in Control Panel

[Donal]

bought a new canon pixma MX455 printer. installation stalls when message says cannot detect printer, and in control panel, devices, it comes up unspecified. i have tried several times and still the same. can someone help please

 

[badrobot]

bought a new canon pixma MX455 printer. installation stalls when message says cannot detect printer, and in control panel, devices, it comes up unspecified. i have tried several times and still the same. can someone help please

If it is plugged in on USB 3.0 port, try switching to USB 2.0 port.

A simple mistake some people do is they plug in the printer to the PC before putting the DVD installer. That's when the problem starts because the computer tries to find a driver for it and uses the generic one before you install the specific driver from the CD/DVD driver installer that it came with. I hope you did not do that.

 

[Donal]

no i didnt. i followed the instructions . i am a not a great computer brain, but i do not know whether usb is 2.0 or 3.0.

 

[badrobot]

no i didnt. i followed the instructions . i am a not a great computer brain, but i do not know whether usb is 2.0 or 3.0.

The inside of USB 3.0 is normally blue in color.

...

 

[Donal]

mine are all black

 

[badrobot]

Have you tried installing it without using USB? It's a wireless printer. I set up my wireless printer (an Epson) without a USB cable without any issues. You might wanna try it first. But make sure you computer is connected to the internet first.

 

[Donal]

i would probably need a wifi attachment for computer

 

[badrobot]

No. Your wireless router (I am assuming you have one) will take care of the communication between your PC and the printer. Just follow the steps carefully.

 

[Fixer1234]

I like badrobot's workaround if your router has wifi. If it doesn't, try this:

Uninstall all of the Canon software package, delete any printer that might have been created by the install process (even if it is some unknown generic placeholder), and delete any other devices created by the installation (e.g., scanner, fax, etc.). If this printer is a replacement for another Canon printer, uninstall that one and its software the same way.

Most printers have some way to do a self test (usually involves holding down a button while powering it on). Do a self-test if you can to verify that the printer is not defective. If there is no self test, there is often a way to print an internally-stored sample page. If it can't do that, at least power it on and see if it goes through a startup cycle. This won't verify that the interface is working, but at least you will know that the problem is not a dead printer.

Get a different USB cable (they are cheap and on the chance that the problem is a bad cable, this will solve that issue).

Reboot your computer in safe mode with networking and see if the installation will work (they don't always work in safe mode but it is the cleanest way to do it if you can). If safe mode doesn't support the installation, uninstall anything loaded during that attempt. Then, reboot your computer, temporarily disable your anti-virus software, and redo the installation before you open any applications. You might even want to use msconfig to suppress loading anything that isn't part of Windows.

If the installation doesn't work under these conditions, there is something else going on.