Printer drivers failing to install in Windows 10


I recently had the task of upgrading a group of laptops to Windows 10 and reinstalling all the requires software and drivers including printer drivers, I searched on the Canon website and there were no Canon drivers for windows 10, the printer was actually listed as unsupported in Windows 10.

The printer was a Canon Pixma MX series printer and the drivers were probably designed for Windows 7, I couldn't understand why the drivers would not work in Windows 10 so I did some research and with some trial and error found the solution.

During the driver installation, everything runs great up until the end where the software attempts to set the printer as the default printer, this step ends up crashing the installer. The cause of this issue is a new feature in Windows 10 which is enabled by default, this feature puts Windows in charge of managing the default printer and as such breaks many driver installers.

Resolving Windows 10 printer driver issues



  1. Open the Settings window from the Start menu.
  2. In the Settings menu click on Devices.
  3. Under "Printers and Scanners" find the heading "Let Windows manage my default printer" if this is set to "On" then turn it off by clicking the switch icon.
  4. After you have completed this, close settings and attempt to reinstall the drivers for your printer.
Even though the Canon printer I was working with wasn't supported in Windows 10 I managed to make it work with these simple steps, hopefully, these steps will also help you with your windows 10 printer driver problems.


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