What to do if you can't see your printer after downloading the drivers for it

Learn about what you can do when you don't see your printer listed after downloading its driver.

Symptom

After downloading the printer drivers for my printer, you do not see the printer listed.

Cause:

Most print drivers are not automatically installed once downloaded from the manufacturer's website. You must manually install the driver yourself.

Right-click the icon in your host computer's system tray and select Preferences.
Select the Printing tab and click Add Printer.
Follow the Add Printer Wizard instructions.
When prompted to locate your printer model, click Have Disk and browse to the folder where you downloaded the driver files.
Locate the autorun.inf file and click Open and then OK.
In the Add Printer Wizard, select your printer from the list and click Next.
Result: You should now be able to finish the manual printer installation.

Article last updated: 14 March, 2023

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