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Adjust Your Printer Timeout

Intended For
Windows 98
Windows 95
If you've ever printed in Windows, your work has undoubtedly been interrupted with the little "Windows will Retry in 5 seconds" window that appears if your printer is not turned on, out of paper, or just warming up. The time that Windows waits before notifying you that the printer isn't ready is called the timeout. In Windows 3.x, the Timeout was easily changed to suit the user's printer and work habits, but this adjustment can be difficult to find in Windows 95 & 98. It can be terribly irritating to have to look at this retry window every 5 seconds. Here's how to do it:

  • Double-click on the Printers icon in Control Panel, and click on the Details tab.
  • For an unknown reason, the timeout for "not ready" is called Not Selected here. Set this value and the value below it to something more tolerable like 120 seconds.

  • Note: This solution won't work in some situations, and the little box will still appear.


Written by: Annoyances.org
Last updated: Friday, August 10, 2001

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