"No printers are installed" error when copying cells

[Dark Pumpkin]

When I attempt to copy cells in excel, I get an error that says "No printers are installed. To install a printer click the File tab, and then click Print. Click No Printers Installed, and then click Add Printer. Floofw the instructions in the Add Printer dialog box." There is a button that says "show help", and it gives me instructions to install a printer... This has NOHTHING to do with copying cells Microsoft, wtf?



This error comes up anywhere from 2 to 4 times every time I copy any cells. This is not a keyboard shortcut mapping issue as I've seen suggested on other forums because even when I right click > copy, I still get the same error.

When I press ctrl+p or go to the print menu, printing works perfectly fine without any errors.

After getting rid of these dialog boxes, it copies the data to the clipboard just fine.

Please help, it is extremely annoying having to click 2 to 4 dialog boxes 100 times a day!

[edit]
I didn't ever get this error a couple months ago.

[jamesdann]

I suspect that you are getting this error because of print Spooler service. Just start the Print Spooler service and try again to copy cells. For your convenience, you may set Startup Type Automatic for Print Spooler through Print Spooler Properties dialog window.

[donalliang]

Hi Dark Pumpkin,

I get exactly the same issue. Tons of googling don't get any luck.
This issue happened to me "silently" - until some day I copy a cell from a brand new Excel sheet, no newly installed applications, no changes to any configurations in the OS or Excel application, and it's even true when the issue happens 1 hours later after I did a full system image restoration. The same prompts (yes, 4 times) appears when copying/cutting/undoing via either shortcuts or menu selections.

Workaround is to enable Print Spooler service.

I confirm the following facts:

• I had a system image where this issue doesn't exist.
• As soon as I restored the system image, the issue doesn't exist (with Print Spooler disabled) as I tested.
• I started up the restored system and launched a few applications, including VMware Workstations v10, Putty v0.60, uTorrent 2.2.1, TeamViewer v9.0.26297, NotePad++ v5.9.8, Chrome v35 and a few other IM applications. I don't think it's anyhow related to those applications by the way.
• No other operations with my PC after I launched those applications until I get to my office when I use TeamViewer to do a simple copy/cut/undo actions - it happens.
• My OS = Windows 7 Ultimate x64 English and My Office version is 2010 x64 version.
• The issue doesn't happen to other Office applications but only to Excel.

So basically I think TeamViewer 9 triggered something deep in the system call or something that makes copy/cut/undo functions rely on Print Spooler service. When I get back to home and directly use my keyboard and mice, the issue persists without using TeamViewer. There must be some TeamViewer service running in the background but I can't tell if that's the cause. Anyway, once it happens, it persists.

I don't know if this thread has any update or not, but I'm leaving this message here to add my cents.

And Yes, I want to know how to resolve this. I don't have hardware resources issue (i7 3770 + 32GB RAM + 256GB SSD) but I just want to know why that happens so it's not about "saving resource by disabling Print Spooler".

[whatsup]

Hi

If you suspect software bringing up the issue so uninstall them one by one checking if the error remains. If you got an image, the other way around is the better choice: Installing them one by one by checking with excel.
Google Chrome has been in former time quite a candidate bringing up problems, don't know if's the one.

If the issue did come up all of a sudden, without installing new software, there's a chance that one of the latest updates either OS or Office cause the problem. A reset to a former point might solve the problem.

Just by the way:
I never encountered the problem but using Office 2010 32bit The first thing occuring to me is both of you got the 64bit-version installed. Why - I wonder??? MS itself doesn't recommend the version, actually is advising people not to install this version but stick to 32bit

[donalliang]

Hi whatsup,

Thanks for leaving the message.
I would say your troubleshooting methodology is absolutely making sense. But that's not the case - as I said, no newly installed/uninstalled software, no OS configuration changes, no Windows Office Update and no nothing but launched a few applications processes.

Yesterday I did another image restoration and checked the issue "hasn't happened yet", and I disabled Teamviewer to start up with Windows and make sure no Teamviewer background service running. That's because I realized each time the issue happened when I sit in office using Teamviwer to remotely control my PC. Considering I've been using Teamviewer for a while and the issue didn't happen until the very first time I did copy/cut/undo operations via Teamviewer, so for now I'll keep Teamviewer installed but stop all of its processes and services.

It's been a few hours and I can normally do copy/cut/undo in my Excel 2010 x64. I'll feedback here once it's stable for, say, 2 weeks, OR, the issue happened without Teamviewer.

Why using x64 ? Because Microsoft developed it, and many many more reasons.

[donalliang]

I keep my PC running as usual but without TeamViewer service running, Excel 2010 "works as designed". This has been stable for 1 week.
So seems like it's Teamviewer.

Well, this is my case. I'm posting it here for references and hope it's helpful.