Antivirus and Printers/Scanners sometimes don't work together well.

We as IT technicians should always focus on delivering good service to the customer and also give customers the convenience in their daily work life.

However, I came across an incident that made me thinking. This happens only recently (yesterday). I was called to service a construction site office.

Another technician was already there fiddling with the printer. He is the printer's techie guy. When I arrived, he kept mumbling that the Wi-Fi connection is up and down. I checked, 1st thing location of the device was in the cupboard shelve. I move it on top of the shelve instead. The signal got better.

The network cable was loose. So, I plug it in tightly. Printer was functioning again. I then continue to do my task while he setup ready pcs there to connect to printer and scan. He then instructed the customer saying "I have disabled the pc's antivirus firewall. Then only it can scan the file in". I was shocked to hear that coming out from the printer technician. I had to intervene. I just say it out "you don't need to disable the antivirus, its placed that in the first place to prevent viruses. You can't just disable just to make the scanning works. Its an inconvenience to the customer". He didn't bother. He just want to make his work simple and complete.

I manage to fix the scanning and with the antivirus still running. No need to disable anything! We're suppose to give convenience to the customers, not inconveniences! And the technician didn't even bother to learn.

Solution:
Most Antivirus have the function and setting to enable Printer and Sharing services. Just need to make sure that the function is enabled and most up to date printer drivers should be able to work well with the antivirus intact and running. If the antivirus still blocks, meaning the drivers or the software is not configured with the latest functions and should only be placed in a pc or mini server with no internet connection. This way, the software will not be prone to get virus attacks that could leak out to other normal working PCs with internet connection. This is to prevent from users, (usually) choosing to click ignore on antivirus pop up scanners because, it interrupts their work or they need to access the file. 

Installing Printers that aren't detected on older Windows PC thru Network Connection

I came across an old PC. Its still runs on Windows XP Home. And its connection to the internet thru a local area network (LAN). It has a network linked printer. I can detect the printer via command prompt (C:\ping 192.168.1.xxx) by pinging on the network IP printer. But when I tried to install the printer from the Windows XP Control Panel = Add Printer Wizard window, it doesn't detect the printer. Nor will it access the network printer via Run command "\\192.168.1.xxx". 

I can't just go and tell my customer that "oh, its an old PC with out dated Windows XP Home, probably you should just get a new Windows 10 PC".  Customer says, "The PC was working fine just yesterday and only today it doesn't connect or cannot detect". So long as the printer has a driver for Windows XP and above, it should work.

So, this solution that I found is to install the printer not from network search (because its not detecting the printer IP), but from the normal "Local Printer attached to this computer" option.

Make sure you un-tick the option that says "Automatically detect and install my plug and play printer".  

(Download the correct printer driver first before hand). When you click next, go to the printer driver folder and select the printer driver .inf file. 

It will pop up stating the printer's name. Choose according to the printer that is hooked up on the network. 

Have it installed successfully. The printer icon should appear on the printer window. That's not the end. Now we have to make it connect to the IP address that has been assigned to the printer. 

To do this, go to the printer properties (right click on the printer icon). 

Click on the Add Port, Select the Standard TCP/IP Port . Then key in the IP address under the label "Printer name or IP address". Click next and Apply or OK to finalize the settings. 

There you have it! Its all done and now the printer should be able to print again. Always do a Test Print to make sure. 

If it still doesn't work, it has to be either the network is not connected or could be the printer driver is not installed with the correct driver.