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.

1. Open Control Panel: Click the windows icon in the bottom left of the computer screen and then select Control Panel from the pop up menu.
2. Open Printers: If you are not already in Classic View mode then switch to this by clicking on Classic View in the upper right of the control panel. Once in Classic View click on Printers and Faxes.
3. Open Printer Properties: Right click on the printer in question and select Properties from the drop down.
4. Print a Test Page: Click the “Print A Test Page”  button from the printer properties. It took our printer a minute to warm up but once it did it printed the test page properly.

After printing the test page we went back to notepad and the note printed without issue. We then attempted to print the Word document that was already open but received the same error. After restarting Word then Word documents started printing properly.