The other day I ran into a nasty problem on my Windows 7 virtual machine when I tried to open Devices and Printers from the Start menu.
Instead of loading the list of devices, printers, and faxes as usual, it kept freezing and nothing was loaded. It was just a blank screen like below:
Grrrr. It worked fine a few days ago, so I couldn’t figure out what changed. When something like this happens, I always think of several things. Have I installed any new Windows updates? They are notorious for constantly screwing up!
That was not the case, so I checked to see if I had installed any new drivers or updated any existing drivers on my computer, but that was not the case either. I have not installed new hardware or updated anything. At this point, I was running out of options.
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Then I remembered something! A few days ago, I turned off Bluetooth on my computer because I didn’t think I needed it. After playing Google I realized that this is the problem! For some strange reason, you need to enable Bluetooth service and / or Bluetooth support service. To do this, you need to go to the Start menu, type Services and click Services.
For some reason my service was set to manual mode and didn’t even start. I ran it and then set it to automatic.
To change it to Automatic, right-click the service and select Properties. Then, under Startup Type, select Automatic.
This is it! Now, if you return to the Devices and Printers section, it should look something like this:
If your Devices and Printers window is still not loading or freezing, leave a comment here and we will try to help! Enjoy!
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