Win-7U -- Found First Real Annoyance.

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
. . .
All that being said, I was able to force Vista drivers that say "operating system not supported" on a Win7 machine, 32 and 64 bit.


If you don't mind, how did you do this?

Yes, it's an old, relatively cheap printer, but ironically, it's one of the best ink jets I've ever used, and I'd really like to keep it viable (by that, I mean usable on ALL our computers, even those hobbling along on 64-bit Win-7...

)


Download the driver you need. Using WinRAR or 7-Zip (freebie downloads), right click on the download, then "extract to..." let it unpack the zipped download to a new folder. Find the Setup.exe (or similar) in the newly unpacked/unzipped folder then right click, choose Properties. Then choose the Compatibility tab. Try using Vista SP1 first...

So far, it's worked on a number of systems. We forced an odd HP all-in-one inkjet using this method on Vista 64, then again on Win7 64 when the person's computer was upgraded. Worked like a charm!

Of course, YMMV.

 

[ekpolk]

TNS:

Thanks very much. When I get to come up for air (which won't be today -- I'm prepping for an all-day "event" in court tomorrow in front of our roughest judge...), I will give this a try. Looks pretty straightforward. I'd like to think that eventually, I would, from sheer desperation, given something like this a try. But you get the credit. Thanks again.

VR, EKP

 

[saberz]

Try using the 32bit drivers anyway, sometimes they will work, you just need to force feed them to the OS through the device manager.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Mamala Bay
I've spoken to computer students who are aiming towards Cisco and from what I've gathered the Win-7 32 bit is more diver friendly and stable over the 64 bit especially when converting from Windows XP drivers. They've experience both the 32 and 64 bit. They have some bitter feelings on Win-7 64 bit, it's just not ready.

Just saying what they told me. They stick with the 32bit, they deal with servers and high end things.


That's a crock of poo

Nor am I sure what bearing Cisco has on the topic of Windows 7 drivers, since most of their business-grade equipment consists of routers, switches, NAS and SA devices, none of which care what operating system is being used, let alone whether it is 32 or 64-bit.

Unless we are dragging up the Linksys brand, and start talking about consumer-grade junk, I just don't see the connection?

Most servers running a Windows OS (Server 2008 x64?) would have Intel NIC's in them, which have wonderful support in any flavour.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Cisco doesn't offer a 64 bit client for their VPN unless you purchase one of the enterprise contracts/products. The price puts it out of reach for many, including us.

Unless things have changed recently...

 

[Mamala Bay]

It's for their own personal usage home computers not work related.

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Cisco doesn't offer a 64 bit client for their VPN unless you purchase one of the enterprise contracts/products. The price puts it out of reach for many, including us.

Unless things have changed recently...


I'm not even sure if there is a 64bit VPN client yet. My VPN options from my employer exclude Windows 64 bit of any flavor. We use Cisco VPN, and no 64bit client is offered by our IT dept.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Cisco doesn't offer a 64 bit client for their VPN unless you purchase one of the enterprise contracts/products. The price puts it out of reach for many, including us.

Unless things have changed recently...


Cisco has the Anyconnect VPN Client for 64-bit OS's.

That being said:

You can use OpenVPN (SSL) or PPTP, both of which work with Cisco equipment.

Just because you are using Cisco equipment doesn't mean you are bound to their software.

One of my "sites" is a hybrid of IPCop, Cisco 18xx and 8xx routers as well as a few PFSense boxes. All living in harmony with IPSec

They are all in various locations in the US and Canada.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Mamala Bay
It's for their own personal usage home computers not work related.


There again I fail to see the lack of support. My 64-bit flavour of Windows 7, as well as the hundreds of deployments I have out there at various sites have no stability or driver issues. But I use pretty "mainstream" hardware; mainly Intel chipsets and ATI, NVidia and Intel video, so the support has been there for a long time already.

You start working with poorly supported/Unicorn hardware then yes, there is less support there. But that statement goes for 32-bit OS flavours as well.

 

[javacontour]

That's good to know.


I see more windows in my future, ugh?

Hopefully Solaris will be adopted as a desktop since Oracle owns it now, but it hasn't happened in the first two months of Oracle's ownership of Sun.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Thanks for the clarification Overkill.

64bit OS's are the way to go. The biggest thorn in our side is printer drivers for the 64bit systems--and thus, ek's problem in this thread.


But really, I try not to deploy Win7 32 bit unless there is some need to do so.

Interesting to note that the 64 bit "boxed" software is outselling the 32 bit version of Win7 by a decent margin.

It's about time!!

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Thanks for the clarification Overkill.

64bit OS's are the way to go. The biggest thorn in our side is printer drivers for the 64bit systems--and thus, ek's problem in this thread.


But really, I try not to deploy Win7 32 bit unless there is some need to do so.

Interesting to note that the 64 bit "boxed" software is outselling the 32 bit version of Win7 by a decent margin.

It's about time!!


Most of the "generic" HP compatible stuff will work with.... Generic drivers. It is when you get into multi-function devices that the onus is really on the manufacturer to get their arses in gear and develop the necessary support for the device.

The issues seem to arise when dealing with older hardware that is no longer developing active profit for the manufacturer, they seem to lag behind and in many cases completely neglect the development of "modern platform" drivers for these devices. This is particularly true for 64-bit OS's, since often a quick tweak and re-package of their older 32-bit drivers are enough to make them work on the new 32-bit OS but this is not the case for 64-bit support.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Originally Posted By: ekpolk
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
. . .
All that being said, I was able to force Vista drivers that say "operating system not supported" on a Win7 machine, 32 and 64 bit.


If you don't mind, how did you do this?

Yes, it's an old, relatively cheap printer, but ironically, it's one of the best ink jets I've ever used, and I'd really like to keep it viable (by that, I mean usable on ALL our computers, even those hobbling along on 64-bit Win-7...

)


Download the driver you need. Using WinRAR or 7-Zip (freebie downloads), right click on the download, then "extract to..." let it unpack the zipped download to a new folder. Find the Setup.exe (or similar) in the newly unpacked/unzipped folder then right click, choose Properties. Then choose the Compatibility tab. Try using Vista SP1 first...

So far, it's worked on a number of systems. We forced an odd HP all-in-one inkjet using this method on Vista 64, then again on Win7 64 when the person's computer was upgraded. Worked like a charm!

Of course, YMMV.

TNS:

Thanks for the suggestion. Alas, I'm still not there yet. The problem is finding a driver at all. On the hp site, I have drilled down through the choices, trying the specific 3420 model, as well as the "generic" 3500 and 3600 series. In all cases, it seems that hp offers no drivers, neither for Win-7, nor for Vista, 32 or 64 bit.

The procedure suggested at the hp site is to go through the "add a printer" procedure in the OS, and then rely upon Windows Update to find the driver and load it over to the computer (assuming it didn't come with the OS, which obviously, it didn't...).

Well, I've tried this multiple times, and Win update can't seem to supply the driver either. So, in essence, I'm presently stuck with nothing to install.

I've tried a couple independent sites, but found no non-hp drivers to install.

So, any idea where I might find a compatible driver to get this printer back into action?

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

I'll do some hunting. I'm wondering if XP 64 drivers, if available, would work....

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
I'll do some hunting. I'm wondering if XP 64 drivers, if available, would work....


Would certainly be worth a shot. I've tried searching around for a 3rd party site from which I could pull a usable driver. Found a couple that purported to do so, but when you follow their links (after giving up my email address...), they just link right back to the hp site, which offers only an apology for not having a current driver. Grrrrrr.

 

[Brons2]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

The issues seem to arise when dealing with older hardware that is no longer developing active profit for the manufacturer, they seem to lag behind and in many cases completely neglect the development of "modern platform" drivers for these devices.


'Neglect'?? Who are we kidding here??

What is the financial incentive for companies to develop drivers for cheap old printers for users who are two operating system releases down the road???? It boggles the mind why people expect this!!!!!!

If I was an HP shareholder and saw them developing Win7 64 bit drivers for an 8 year old consumer grade printer, I would be hacked off!

Folks, long term support is achievable, but only if people decide en mass that software support is worth paying yearly fees for. HP does not employ software engineers for free. Nor should you expect them to work for free, either, so you can have a Windows 7 driver for an 8 year old printer.

Get a new printer, and donate your old one to some nonprofit that still runs Windows XP.

 

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: Brons2
What is the financial incentive for companies to develop drivers for cheap old printers for users who are two operating system releases down the road???? It boggles the mind why people expect this!!!!!!


The support expectation, and the inducement to purchase, depends on the peripheral.

For a multi-kilobuck enterprise-grade unit, I expect continuing support for a couple of OS generations as part of the price. If the device is built to last six or eight years (or longer), then the support should, too. Many of HP's older high output laserjets fall into this category. I've got an ancient LJ 6p from the mid-90s ("only" a $600+ workgroup-class printer) that still cranks along on W7x64, as they are very well-made. If I thought that HP would have dumped support after a couple of years, I never would have bought it.

The decision to buy a higher-end peripheral is affected by the support expectation, and that IS a big financial incentive to the manufacturer to provide it, or they'll lose the sale.

But for the guy fiddling with a $79 inkjet, I tend to agree more with your argument.

 

[Brons2]

The thing that makes the old LaserJets easy to support is that you can just feed them PCL or PostScript and call the thing a 'driver', but it's really just plain PCL.

Microsoft can probably support 100+ old LaserJet models with a few different PCL drivers, so why not make your customers happy with very little effort.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: Brons2

. . .

What is the financial incentive for companies to develop drivers for cheap old printers for users who are two operating system releases down the road???? It boggles the mind why people expect this!!!!!!
. . .


Please, get back on your meds before making a post like this. Or at least read carefully.

Note my use of the term "annoyance". Not cataclysm. Not calamity. Not disaster. ANNOYANCE.

OK then, since you felt the need, let's establish a tad more perspective. First, though I'm no programming genius, I simply cannot imagine that creating drivers for printers is expensive rocket science. But yes, I see the point that there may not be all that much need. That said, is every one of the multitude of printers hp releases every year a totally new, from scratch device, whose drivers bear no resemblance to those of the older models? The "physical" guts of this old printer look pretty much like those of much newer ones. Can the programs be all that different?

One wonders, then, how the shareholders would feel to find out that their engineers are so grossly overbuilding their "throwaway" printers that many of them end up lasting for a decade, and are still printing strong at that point.

And since you brought up the shareholders, how will they feel if they learn that regular, repeat customers (I own several other flavors of HP printers) decide that it's better to just buy the cheapest throw-away printer I can and toss it into the trash when the first cartridge empties? And the cheapest el cheapo certainly won't be an hp.

I do suppose that the shareholders would love a game plan that effectively forces customers to toss perfectly good equipment and buy new, on a frequent basis.

I can, on the other hand, hardly imagine the outrage of the environmentalists were they to discover that people are being forced to throw perfectly functional printers into the landfill...

Now, just so we're all totally, totally clear, my intent in starting this thread was not to express misplaced outrage that full support is not still there for an old inkjet. I'm (now) just trying to see if there's a solution (short of a model-specific driver) I can graft in that will help this healthy oldster keep printing until maybe it finally fails.

So, is there anyone out there that actually has a helpful suggestion or comment?

 

[XS650]

Originally Posted By: Brons2


What is the financial incentive for companies to develop drivers for cheap old printers for users who are two operating system releases down the road???? It boggles the mind why people expect this!!!!!!

If I was an HP shareholder and saw them developing Win7 64 bit drivers for an 8 year old consumer grade printer, I would be hacked off!



A shortsighted focus on money can cost a business. A few months ago I decided to upgrade my wife's 4 year old HP laptop to Win 7. Several things on the laptop didn't work because HP isn't going to provide drivers for them. HP's response was basically, tough luck, buy a new computer.

So I did, she really likes her Apple.

And our college student niece is enjoying my wife's old HP laptop which I put back on XP.

I won't say I will never buy an HP product again, but they are low on my list and in most cases won't even get looked at.