[Solved] Remove Device from Printer List

[neilhmurphy]

I would like to remove the Fax HP 6830 ... entry from the candidate device list when I go to print something. 1) The Fax doesn't work. 2) Both my wife and I find it confusing one word makes a huge difference.

[Bill]

I believe you have to delete the printer using the Control Panel in Windows.

[neilhmurphy]

Bill you are correct as far as it goes. Deleting an item in Control Panel does not necessarily delete it from Writer's candidate list. Look at it This way Control Panel belongs to Windows and the candidate list belongs to Writer.

[RusselB]

I found that modifying the registrymodifications.xcu file, which is located in the user profile directory (%appdata%) allowed me to remove an unwanted entry.
The entry may occur multiple times.
In OpenOffice Writer, go to File -> Printer settings
Make note of the printer name that you wish to remove. This is the part that occurs before the information in brackets.
Close OpenOffice.
In the Windows search, enter %appdata%
Open the registrymodifications.xcu file using a Word/text processor (I used notepad easily).
Do a Find for the printer name that you want to delete (as noted earlier)
Delete that line.
Repeat the find/delete until the entry is not found.
Use Ctrl+S to save the file.

[neilhmurphy]

I'm pretty sure I don't understand "the user profile directory". I searched C:\Users. I got a bunch of hits on Live Mail. I tried to find "registrymodifications.xcu" but no hits.

[RusselB]

Press the Windows key on your keyboard.
This will bring up the Start Menu
In the box marked Search Programs and Files, which should have the cursor already blinking in it, type %appdata%
Then press the Enter key. Don't forget the % symbols
That will take you to the directory that you need.

[Bill]

Searching for %appdata% won't quite get your where you need to be. After the search, open the "OpenOffice" folder, then open the "4" folder, then open the "user" folder.

[neilhmurphy]

Got it! Now the bad news the "Fax ..." is not listed nor is "6830".

[Bill]

Bill you are correct as far as it goes. Deleting an item in Control Panel does not necessarily delete it from Writer's candidate list. Look at it This way Control Panel belongs to Windows and the candidate list belongs to Writer.

I've tested it on Windows 10 and it works for me. OpenOffice should populate any list from what's in the Control Panel. You may need to restart OpenOffice or the computer after deleting an item from the Control Panel so OpenOffice refreshes its list.

[neilhmurphy]

Bill attached is part of my control panel there are no faxes, but I just checked the registry and they are there.

[keme]

Most likely, the Officejet Pro 6830 has an outgoing phone line jack, and option to send faxes. Windows "plug and play" functionality will insist on installing and displaying all known devices.

Possible cause of confusion:
Windows recognizes it as one device so there is only one item in "printers and faxes" window, but still provides two options in the print dialog because there are two different output paths.
This is only a shot in the dark. I am not sure that this is actually what happens, and I have no similar device at hand for testing.

Suggested solutions:
It may be possible to disable the fax in device manager without influencing printer functionality.

Failing that, it may help to disable the fax functionality in the printer. There usually is a web administration interface for that. Enter the printer's IP in any browser. There may also be a system tray icon for printer administration, where the fax link can be disabled. Look into it and report back...

[neilhmurphy]

You are good at guessing. I am a VoIP customer. My vendor, like many others, does not support fax, for which I have no use. I just re-verified and HP provides no obvious way to disable the fax. May be I should ask HP.
In my opinion fax is an obsolete technology better left to commercial ventures.

[keme]

You are good at guessing.

After twenty-odd years where a major part of my job has been network and device management, I have built some foundation for guesswork...

I just re-verified and HP provides no obvious way to disable the fax.

I looked briefly into the HP support myself, and can confirm what you already saw, that there is no advice there to be found towards your goal.
Is there no "Disable" option in the setup menu (fax section?) on the front panel? Stupid, but not surprising. Have you tried to visit the printer's IP with a web browser. There may be more to do there, or maybe not. I have set up more than a few printers in my time, several of which had functionality I wanted to disable. There have been some cases where disabling was not an option. We live with it...

Some possible workarounds I would have attempted:

• See if the printer will emulate other printer models. Uninstall the OfficeJet drivers and install drivers for the emulated printer instead. Chances are, the emulated printer does not have fax, so that is not part of the driver set.
  Chances are, you will lose some functionality when you use emulation.
• Set up a print server and port all printing through that, instead of connecting to the printer directly. The print paths may be split on the server, so you can choose to install only the "real printer", not the fax print queue.
  Setting up a dedicated print server is perhaps a bit over the top for a home network...

Failing that, I guess you will have to either live with it or get rid of the device.

[neilhmurphy]

Thanks. Don't get me started on HP's "support". I did just post something on their forum. When I run out of ink or the device fails again I will get rid of it. This is number four. The previous three died of printhead errors. I imagine HP is losing it shirt over this device.
x
Do you know anything about the MASTER BROWSER which maintains a list of computers in the network. Mine is broken or MIA. Win 7 x64 Pro. Not fixed in Win 10.

[keme]

Do you know anything about the MASTER BROWSER which maintains a list of computers in the network. Mine is broken or MIA. Win 7 x64 Pro. Not fixed in Win 10.

Roughly ...
In small networks using Microsoft protocols (SMB, NetBIOS, Workgroup), the master browser (or browse master) is the computer chosen to be the "supervisor" for the devices on your network (or more precisely, a service running on that computer). Computers on the network will negotiate to determine which one is most suitable (normally the one with more free resources). In some cases the negotiation fails, or the elected master is turned off, or browser service is disabled. When this happens, you may have a situation with no browse master on the network. Missing browse master for a workgroup can often be reinstated by rebooting all computers on your network.

I gather that you are on a peer-to-peer, "Workgroup" network. If you are on a domain controlled network, you have a designated (not negotiated) "domain master browser". This will be a service running on the primary domain controller, in most cases a computer running Microsoft Windows Server OS. Unless you have a really large network, you most likely have only one Windows server in operation. If your server (domain controller) goes down, the client computers lose their master browser.

[neilhmurphy]

In the morning no computers are running, but the router and two NASes are. Then I boot my HP6250. several hours after that other (3 = 2 Win 7 + 1 Win XP) may be booted up. but no master browser. I started to switch to a domain, but chickened out. Should I switch?

[keme]

In the morning no computers are running, but the router and two NASes are. Then I boot my HP6250. several hours after that other (3 = 2 Win 7 + 1 Win XP) may be booted up. but no master browser. I started to switch to a domain, but chickened out. Should I switch?

If you have two NAS boxes which should work together, you may need a domain setup. If you can do without that, I'd try to roll back to "workgroup state". I have little experience with setting up domain services, so can't advise in any more detail. (I looked into setting up FreeNAS as a domain controller once, but the lack of documentation scared me off. That was a while ago, so things may have changed...)

[neilhmurphy]

I'll leave things as they are.
Thanks Signing off.