Windows 10: Prints defaults to PRN after Windows 10 pushed required upgrade yesterday. How do I repair...

After August 02 2019 MS push of WIN 10 upgrade, my PC stopped printing to printer and, instead, offers to save prints as prn files. It does not matter from which application the print command is issued. I've tried WORD, browsers (Edge, Chrome, Firefox), Adobe PDF, etc. All try to create a prn file. I have checked the Printer Application each time. The "Print to File" option is turned OFF. I have tried turning it ON, then OFF to try to jog it with no success. My printer, which has worked well for me for the past couple of years (until this MS OS upgrade), is set as the default printer. The printer is an HP Officejet Pro 8710 and shows to be in "Ready" state. Running a test page from it also offers to create a prn file. I do notice under printer properties that the port for the printer now, for some odd reason, shows as "Print to File". I tried using the "Configure Port" option to change that, but a message pops up informing "There is nothing to configure for this port". The other options are "Add Port" and "Delete Port", which I have not tried doing at this time. … I am not a novice techy. My formal occupation involves me in computer software and hardware issues daily. Any Expert suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I have already perused the older related posting, but they all appear to direct to the turn OFF the "Print to File" option, which is not the problem I appear to be having with my machine. … It is always something different each time Microsoft pushes a major WIN 10 upgrade. I know my weekend will be wasted trying to resolve a problem they create. … Thank you.

:)

 

Prints defaults to PRN after Windows 10 pushed required upgrade yesterday. How do I repair this?

After August 02 2019 MS push of WIN 10 upgrade, my PC stopped printing to printer and, instead, offers to save prints as prn files. It does not matter from which application the print command is issued. I've tried WORD, browsers (Edge, Chrome, Firefox),
Adobe PDF, etc. All try to create a prn file. I have checked the Printer Application each time. The "Print to File" option is turned OFF. I have tried turning it ON, then OFF to try to jog it with no success. My printer, which has worked well for me for the
past couple of years (until this MS OS upgrade), is set as the default printer. The printer is an HP Officejet Pro 8710 and shows to be in "Ready" state. Running a test page from it also offers to create a prn file. I do notice under printer properties that
the port for the printer now, for some odd reason, shows as "Print to File". I tried using the "Configure Port" option to change that, but a message pops up informing "There is nothing to configure for this port". The other options are "Add Port" and "Delete
Port", which I have not tried doing at this time. … I am not a novice techy. My formal occupation involves me in computer software and hardware issues daily. Any Expert suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I have already perused the older related posting,
but they all appear to direct to the turn OFF the "Print to File" option, which is not the problem I appear to be having with my machine. … It is always something different each time Microsoft pushes a major WIN 10 upgrade. I know my weekend will be wasted
trying to resolve a problem they create. … Thank you.

 

Prints defaults to PRN after Windows 10 pushed required upgrade yesterday. How do I repair this?

That worked Greg. Thank you.

I followed your written instructions, including those at the link. Deleted the printer and its drivers. While doing so, I discovered some drivers from old printers I no longer use, so I deleted those also. There was also an odd "Unknown" printer showing
in the Device Manager listing. I checked the Events history on it and saw it was loaded the same day and time as my machine was upgrading the WIN 10 OS. It appeared non-functional. It would not identify itself as being valid and would not search for any drivers
that may have been related to it; so, I deleted it as well. It may have been acting as a default and sending prints to prn (?? just guessing).

I did run into a slight glitch during the install of the printer software (which I retrieved from the HP site). It was searching for the networked printer, which it had found for the selections listed, but returned unable to install after trying a few minutes.
The option was to Try Again or Cancel. Checking the printer, I noticed the printer had gone to sleep. I awoke it and issued a command to Try Again. The install was, then, successful.

 

Prints defaults to PRN after Windows 10 pushed required upgrade yesterday. How do I repair this?

I had this same problem today and spent the last couple of hours trying to fix it.

I didn't want to uninstall and re-install printer software and drivers etc. so I dug deeper and found the setting that loading the Windows 10 update had changed.

I have two HP printers available and only one was printing, the other wanted to create a *.prn file instead.

I compared the printer properties > ports and noticed that the working printer was assigned a WSD port and the non-working printer a File port, which means print to file.

There was another WSD port available which I clicked on and from that point on, my printer printed to the printer...

I had previously verified when trying to print a pdf in the advanced options, that print to file was unchecked.

Anyway, on my pc, this "fix" worked for me and perhaps it may help someone who is searching for a solution. Meanwhile I hope Microsoft will attend to this glitch as I am sure that loading the Windows 10 latest update was the root cause of this problem in
the first place. I could print yesterday but after running the update today, I could not print.