Does your printer appear ‘offline’? Most likely, Windows changed your printer to use a WSD port instead of the IP address. You can change it back, but seconds later, Windows 10 will revert that change, and your printer will STILL BE OFFLINE! We’ve seen it out in the field, and it’s one of Microsoft’s most annoying features (or bugs).

What is WSD? Well… it could stand for Windows Stupid Drivers, but it doesn’t. It actually stands for Web Services for Devices. What does that mean? It’s a way to make it easier for uses to hook up their own printer without having a technician to do it for them. The problem is that WSD almost always appears to be offline. That’s because it doesn’t really talk to the device. It’s designed to be an easy solution, but ends up more as a frustration than anything. It was designed to be Microsoft’s idea of AirPrint (from Apple). But do you know… it really isn’t necessary! It will work just fine setup as a normal printer.

Let’s say you have a printer that has a static IP address. It’s always worked in the past, but now it never appears to be working. There are a couple of fixes. First, would be a registry fix to remove the WSD driver from your PC. That works the best! If you are not proficient in editing the registry, there are a couple of other things you can do.

1. Uninstall the printer.
2. Reinstall it, but DO NOT CLICK AUTOMATICALLY FIND THE DRIVER. Going through the manual install makes it work easier. Install it manually giving it the IP address you originally had setup. It should work now, and be able to use all the features of the device, like scanning and faxing.

If this doesn’t work for you, it would be best to call us and we can fix the WSD issue once and for all. It will never bother you again. We have the fix, and it only takes minutes to do.