Last Updated on
Don’t panic, your printer is fine. As much as we all hate the foul devices and their lack of actually doing the very simple task they’ve been designed to do, we need to revive it ASAP. The current issue ‘Windows cannot connect to the printer 0x0000011b’ is caused by the latest security update KB5005565, which according to one user on the Microsoft forums is down to protocols being changed in January, but only now being implemented.
While they managed to get a solution of updating every PC connecting to their printer servers to the latest update, some people have found this hasn’t worked and are even beginning to disconnect home PCs from the network-connected printer.
Updates on Windows 10 are constantly breaking things and to get around this issue, Microsoft updated Windows 10 to shutdown without updates as an option recently. However, it will force you to update at some point out of security fears. We can circumvent this with the Services menu if needed.
How to fix ‘Windows cannot connect to the printer 0x0000011b’
First head into settings from the Start menu, then Update & Security. In this menu, scan down to find the Update History. This gives you a full list of everything you’ve updated to and when. Above this are the two blue lines of text, which we’ll be following through the Uninstall Updates.
In this next menu, right-click the required KB5005565 update and uninstall. Windows will restart and you should now be able to recover functionality with your printer.
How to Skip Windows Updates
Obviously, you don’t want to skip updates forever. Microsoft ensure needed security protections come through these and once the Printer issues on KB5005565 have been fixed, be sure to turn this on.
First, open up the Run (Windows Key + R) and type in ‘services.msc’.
In the Services Menu, find Windows Update and right-click it. Open the Properties window and under the General Tab, there’s a Startup Type section. Here, we change this to disabled.
Be sure to change this back once the issue has been resolved, or you won’t get any future updates and could remain vulnerable!
