Have you ever tried to install a printer and received an error message that says “A port with that name already exists. Choose another port name?”

This can happen when you are installing a printer using the same port already in use. If a printer install errors or does not complete properly, the port may have been assigned even though the printer is not installed, and when you try to install the printer again, the error will appear.

The fox for this is easy. Follow the directions below or click the film icon to watch the video.

Go under control panel to Printers, right click in the middle of the white space on the right side of the window and choose Server Properties. Go to the Ports tab, select the port you want to delete, and choose Delete port.

Click the icon to view the video.

Another method to delete a printer port is to edit the registry. Use caution when editing the registry and always backup the registry.

Click Start then Run. Type regedit and then find this registry key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Print\Monitors\Standard TCP/IP Port\Ports\

Highlight and delete the port that is causing the error.

Note: This error may occur during any printer install, but is very common with network printers that use an IP address port.

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USB Drive Not Found

It is not uncommon to plug in a USB drive into a computer and the drive does not appear in Windows Explorer as a drive. This is especially true with computers on corporate or other types of administered networks but can happen on any computer.

Why the USB Drive is Not Found

The system assigns drive letters in order. The first drive assigned a letter is the primary hard drive which is the C drive. If the system has a partition or more that one hard drive, they are assigned the D drive, then E and so on.

After hard drives, CD, DVD, ZIP drives are assigned drive letters. Network dives keep their drive letters that are assigned by the network administrator.

The problem is that the operating system does not recognize mapped drives, only physical and logical drives. Physical drives are hard drives, CD, DVD drives, etc. Logical drives are partitions on a hard drive.

Note: It is assumed that the USB drive is found by the computer but not assigning a drive letter. If the USB drive is not found, then there may be a hardware or driver issue.

No that your eyes have glazed over, just remember that the USB drive is being assigned a drive letter that is already assigned to another drive and it is easy to fix.

Find My USB Drive and Assign a Drive Letter

You must have administrator rights to the computer; if not you network administrator will need to change the drive letter assignments.

Go to My Computer and right click. Select Manage . In the left pane of the Computer Management utility, click Disk Management . In the lower right pane, find the USB drive and right click the drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths . Click Change and on the right side click the down arrow and select a drive letter. You will only be given open drive letters to choose from. Click OK and Yes .

Now go to My Computer or Windows Explorer and you should see your USB drive with the letter that you assigned it.

Watch the video on how to assign a drive letter to a USB drive. Click the film icon.

With this information, you can assign your USB drive a drive letter . From this point on, if nothing changes, the USB drive will have the same drive letter. Your USB drive may not and probably will not have the same drive letter on other computers.

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