Printing from Notepad Provides a “The Handle is Invalid” Error Message
The error message that states “The handle is invalid” can appear for numerous reasons. Directly after this error we attempted to print from MS Word and we were told there as well that a problem with the printer existed. We then remembered that we had just completed a routine patch update to Windows Vista so we decided to look back in the logs. Sure enough one of the items that was upgraded was a printer driver for a Samsung printer.
To resolve this issue we opened up the control panel and selected the Samsung printer to print a test page. Just to note the computer had already been rebooted after the patch upgrade. If it had not been rebooted that would have been the first step. Follow the quick steps below to see how the problem resolved itself for us.