epic bad drivers - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 12:10:20 am
content: I am installing a HP printer. The drivers asked me what I was going to use the printer for.When I installed the wrong drivers before, it tried to reset my computer when I had to force cancel the prompt, almost closing valuable unbacked up programs.It also demanded fax information.I kind of wish "printing threatening letters" was a option for 'intended use'.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 12:35:27 am
content: I don't bother with the main installer.I just open a print port and install the driver manually and the scanner and fax.I remember that HP customer improvement program back in 2010. When accidentally selected to install it use to take up nearly 600 megabytes in space, delayed the installation massively, took long to uninstall and the print driver was only tens of megabytes in comparison. As well as the registration, ink nagging, and annoying popups that were put there by the printer setup installer I found the culprits and removed them and their registry keys.The customer improvement would be to install the drivers, put everything else on the side and leave the user alone.The logo with the hands was spot on as if it there was a neck to strangle.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 01:51:07 am
content: Do you not remember the HP inkjet fiasco a few years back? They've been on my do not buy list ever since.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 01:57:28 am
content: Tell you what infuriated me the cartridges were genuine, from a reputable well known store that is PC World and they cost a lot of money.It was a requirement as brochures were being printed and needed to be done quickly and didn't want the problems that I had previously with smearing and leaking from the re-manufactured or refilled laserjet cartridges. The cartridges were only a couple of weeks old and one day it wouldn't print and some of them were not recognised. I complained to PC World and they sent some new ones out. I am convinced it had something to do with that firmware update they were silently installing. Another HP printer which was an inkjet in a different room did have non genuine cartridges in there but they were no longer recognised at the same time.After that I blocked all the printers from making outgoing connections on the firewall.When first got the printers I made sure I turned off Webprint and all that online stuff and so on but I didn't expect it unbeknown to me at the time to make outgoing connections to 3 different IP addresses associated to Akamai and HP all for nothing.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 03:25:49 am
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on November 05, 2018, 01:57:28 amI had something similar a few years ago on a HP A3 inkjet. If I rebooted the printer it would print its own internal test pages, but as soon as it got sent a print job it errored out. Turns out the carts had an expiry date on them and the Windows print driver sent the PC date as part of the print job. I hooked the printer up to a Linux server and CUPS neatly filtered the date out of the print job. Never had the issue again.

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 06:57:42 am
content: Oh, HP.After a work PC refresh, I spent, without exaggeration, probably ten hours getting our HP color laser working.This is the same printer that will reliably crash if I try to print certain schematics from Altium.This is the same printer that had a spell a while ago where occasionally at night it would print 0-30 characters of gibberish (think extended ASCII) on every. single. page. in the main cassette until it was empty. In the morning we'd come in to find it sitting there blinking its little error light asking for more paper. We had to stop leaving more than a few pages of paper in it for a while.In its defense, when it comes to actually putting toner on a page it's been pretty damn solid, although it gets pretty light use for a commercial grade office printer.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2018, 07:09:31 am
content: Yeah i hate how bloaty printer drivers are.A pleasant contrast to it ware the drivers for my Konica Minolta laser printer. The installer looked like it was made in VB6 or something. I just selected what printer i have and clicked next twice before i seen a progress bar flash on the screen followed a split second later by a message box. It happened so fast that i assumed it just crashed and clicked OK without reading. So i start the installer exe again with admin rights and all that to see if that was the problem but then upon clicking next it tells me i already have this installed and asks me if i want to remove it. Wait what?!So i go check under printers and its indeed there, clicking the test page button indeed makes it print too. Suddenly my impressions of the ugly thrown together installed got turned around 180. It did exactly what it was supposed to do and it did it in under 1 second.