Help getting the XPS writer working.

Question

Win7 ... the MS XPS Document writer has never worked well.  Today I uninstalled the feature and reinstalled it (to no avail).
If I try from Outlook, I get a simple message box ... "Printer not ready".
From Notepad, a message box ... "The parameter is incorrect"
From Excel, an elaborate message box starting with "... could not be printed in the MS XPS Doc Writer on e00 ..."
From Winword, I get nothing at all, including no XPS file.
From IE, I get ... Internet Explorer (not responding)
From the Windows Photo Viewer ... it works!
Help!
Thanks.   - Vince

Answer 1

With a utility of my own, I searched the registry (key names, values, data) for strings containing "xps" (case-insensitive on two machines ... one (work) where printing to XPS works, and the other (home) about which I have been complaining.  Much is
the same but there are striking differences.
The home machine, where printing to XPS doesn't work, has these classes which are completely non-existent on the machine where printing to XPS works.  In fact, "xpsprint.dll" is not mentioned in the registry of the machine on which printing to XPS works.
HKCR\CLSID\{348ef17d-6c81-4982-92b4-ee188a43867a}\InProcServer32
    Value:
->    Data:  %SystemRoot%\System32\XpsPrint.dll
HKCR\CLSID\{E1553E07-5939-4CFD-BE24-3BCEBA2F148C}\InProcServer32
    Value:
->    Data:  %SystemRoot%\System32\XpsPrint.dll
And the second of these (below, "7.1") does not exist on the machine where printing to XPS works.
-> HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide\Winners\x86_microsoft-windows-printing-xpsprint_31bf3856ad364e35_none_1c8562f614ed785a\6.1
-> HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide\Winners\x86_microsoft-windows-printing-xpsprint_31bf3856ad364e35_none_1c8562f614ed785a\7.1
-> HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide\Winners\x86_microsoft-windows-printing-xpsprint_31bf3856ad364e35_none_1c8562f614ed785a
The registry keys which exist on the problematic machine have a time stamp of 2013-11-17, the day on which I instelled IE11 (which required 10 other updates which I'll try to investigate).
If the installation of IE11 is the culprit, I gotta laugh ... some apps can print to XPS, some can't, but IE11 is special ... it goes ballistic (not responding).
Any thoughts?