I recently had an annoying issue with a printer. After successful installation of the printer everything worked fine – color mode was availabe. Some days later the option to print in color disappeared from the menue.
First (fast) try was to remove the printer from configuration. After a new installation of the drivers it worked as expected. Unfortunately only for another week – then the option disappeared again.
It took me some time to find the resolution (which is now working in the long-term):
Open the registry editor (regedit) and add the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Print -> Printers -> your printer (eg. HPE Envy 4520)
Add a DWORD 32bit registry key called “ColorPrinting” with value 1
No reboot of the computer necessary – the option to print in color will appear immediately.