This worked for me in Win 7
I know this is an old thread, but I've come across this too, and finally decided to fiddle with it, and have not seen a solution like mine in any forum as of yet. Worked for me, may work in other cases too for future "Googlers" having the same problem...which doesn't seem as of yet to be solved by MS.
I came up with this on my own in Win 7, but hopefully will carry over to 8/8.1 Pro and above as well. Other suggestions in forums like enabling bluetooth services, or doing a startup repair didnt work for me or seemed too complicated.
Remove power cord from the printer that is not showing up in
Devices and Printers, or remove USB/Parallel cord connection
(you do not want the PC to see or autodetect this printer
yet).
Run printmanagement.msc using Start Menu - Run (or maybe the CMD line) printmanagement.msc supposedly is present in Win7/8/8.1 Pro and above
Delete *all* instances of the "invisible" printer and all
instances of its drivers that occur in the "printmanagement.msc"
program window under the Custom Filters-All Printers & All
Drivers folders.
Leaving printer disconnected, go back to the "Devices and
Printers" window and do the add printer process. The printer
should appear as an icon as expected.
Power up/reconnect the printer, and hopefully a test page
will work.
FYI, this was done on "older" printers, like the HP LJ 4" and
a HP LJ 1100. One can hope it will work on newer ones as
well.