Is HP support doing it again (printer drivers)

[SAQ]

Just saw this on the HP printer driver download pages:

**These downloads are available for customers in good standing under Warranty and/or Support Contract with Hewlett Packard**

The linked software agreement doesn't mention this, but it seems to be a Bad Sign, based on what HP has done in the recent past.

Pity, one of the reasons I recommended them highly is because they have (had?) good driver support. Perhaps that is changing.

[Dennis Nedry]

Good riddance.

HP drivers are a blight upon this planet. It's about time they locked those 800MB driver packages up somewhere safe where they can't inflict pain and suffering on some helpless IT guru.

-DN

[skywriter]

Ouch! I just downloaded the driver package for my AIO when I got my macbook air, and didn't see this message a couple of days ago. That would be nasty, I always go for the network download of drivers instead of the install disks. Will have to check again!

[skywriter]

@SAQ nope, still good for me, where did you see this? Maybe they've got it out for you?

[morpheus256]

I get the same message when searching for my CLJ MFC 2840 for windows XP.

Guess it's time to dump it in the e-waste bin since it's giving me issues anyway.

[PymbleSoftware]

I get the same message when searching for my CLJ MFC 2840 for windows XP.

Guess it's time to dump it in the e-waste bin since it's giving me issues anyway.

Printers are an excellent source of gears and electro-mechanical parts for robotics enthusiasts. If you know one offer it.

R.

[SAQ]

Good riddance.

HP drivers are a blight upon this planet. It's about time they locked those 800MB driver packages up somewhere safe where they can't inflict pain and suffering on some helpless IT guru.

-DN

There's a delightful little universal printer driver that they put out. Does pretty much any HP printer worth buying and is reasonably small.

The 250-MB downloads of buggy junk for their cheaper printers are awful. I don't really care about being bugged to buy new supplies online, and much less so when it interferes with the other uses of the computer.

The warnings come up when you search for drivers by model it seems. This page was where I first noticed them: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te ... nvOID=4062

[guardian452]

I plugged my photosmart 8150 into my PC when I installed windows 7 and it was recognized automatically. Never have a problem with it. Before that I used xp x64 and the driver was just a readme telling me to use some deskjet model that had a driver built in the OS. Never had a problem with that either.

After mucking with epson printer drivers I will never buy anything other than HP. Just plug it in and it works Same thing with my deskjet 3950, which also has the advantage of a retail price of 'free' with rebate.

[theinonen]

After mucking with epson printer drivers I will never buy anything other than HP. Just plug it in and it works Same thing with my deskjet 3950, which also has the advantage of a retail price of 'free' with rebate.

Epson is actually the best choice if you are not running Windows. I use port of Gutenprint on RISC OS, and all my Epson printers have worked just fine.

[duck]

I have a cheap epson epl-6200 b/w laser that talks PS... Works perfectly with bsd lpd.

[SAQ]

Undoubtedly PostScript is by far the best choice. You can use it on just about any system with no problems.

[guardian452]

I spent several hours trying to get my grandpa's R200 working in his windows xp64. It also refuses to print if it thinks an ink cartrige is too low. You can't even print black and white if a color is out. I bet the cartridges are still half full when it says they are empty, I've never seen any lines/funny colours or other symptoms of low ink. Ever. And the inks for it are EXPENSIVE!!

So that's my epson experience.

[Dennis Nedry]

Undoubtedly PostScript is by far the best choice. You can use it on just about any system with no problems.

+1.

My current printer is an Oki C3600N. It's a 4-color LED printer. No extra cruft like "wireless" or card readers. The only thing on the back of it is a USB port and a RJ45 jack. The only thing on the front is a tiny keypad and a 2x16 character LCD display.

It speaks Postscript (level 3) and a whole bunch of other stuff. It does zeroconf for Windows (Windows Rally) and Macintosh (Bonjour). It has a pretty awesome web UI that actually works in Safari and just about any other browser out there (unlike some of the other crap I've dealt with, which doesn't work in Safari, and in some cases requires IE). Heck, it even has a telnet interface if you don't have a web browser. And the fans totally turn off (low power mode) when it's not in use, so it's dead silent unless you're printing stuff.

OS X doesn't even need drivers for it- the built in bog-standard "Generic Postscript Printer" works fine for just about everything. Linux likewise has similar drivers, and I think Windows does too- though I don't run Wintel anymore.

Either way, the Postscript thing was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me in terms of printers. None of my previous units spoke it- but the Oki does, so it's just one less thing to worry about. Just print and forget. I've had company over who have wanted to print to it before (usually off Win7). Much to their surprise, the printer is usually autodetected and the generic drivers work just fine. Most of them are totally clueless as to how this could possibly be, since they're all used to dealing with obscure driver crap at work.

-DN

[jan-jaap]

Undoubtedly PostScript is by far the best choice. You can use it on just about any system with no problems.

+1

I've got an old HP LaserJet 2100TN, with PostScript, extra memory and JetDirect. Works everywhere, and without downloading several hundred MB or driver software (sic)

[SAQ]

It used to be that you could just set a PostScript printer up with the "LaserWriter" driver and things would be good, but now that it's hard to find LaserWriter drivers and color printers have cropped up things are a mite more difficult. HP LaserJet/Color LaserJet "PostScript" drivers work for just about everything, just try to get one closish so the PPD file is similar.