Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 10th Nov 2008 14:17 UTC, submitted by Dan Warne
One of the common problems when Windows Vista was released was that of missing or non-working drivers. Microsoft massively reworked many of Windows' internal systems and frameworks, meaning lots of drivers broke, with most of them needing major work, and some even needed to be rewritten completely. Apparently, Microsoft didn't communicate this well enough with its hardware partners - or the partners were lazy, who knows - because many devices failed to work with Vista during its early months of being out in the wild. Microsoft is trying to keep this story from repeating itself, saying that everything that works on Vista should work on Windows 7. To gain a little more insight into this problem, Microsoft gave out some very interesting figures regarding driver installation failure rates.
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RE[3]: go open hw specs, go
by sbergman27 on Mon 10th Nov 2008 16:19
in reply to "RE[2]: go open hw specs, go"
Member since:2005-07-24
Until these guys learn to give me a driver download that's under 5MB in size (preferably under 1 MB in size) I will not buy a new printer.
Does Windows not offer some sort of generic postscript driver? You could always just pick LaserJet 3, or LaserJet 1200 (PS) from the built in drivers, or something. You might not get one button, triple-sided, multi-duplex, ultraviolet printing with an automatic spin cycle every 20 pages, but it should work pretty well for what you really need.
And yeah, HP wants to get all intrusive in Linux, too. I just pick generic postscript and go on.
RE[4]: go open hw specs, go
by Gone fishing on Mon 10th Nov 2008 18:40
in reply to "RE[3]: go open hw specs, go"
Member since:2006-02-22
RE[3]: go open hw specs, go
by BluenoseJake on Mon 10th Nov 2008 16:55
in reply to "RE[2]: go open hw specs, go"
Member since:2005-08-11
RE[3]: go open hw specs, go
by poundsmack on Mon 10th Nov 2008 17:35
in reply to "RE[2]: go open hw specs, go"
Member since:2005-07-13
you can download the driver and not use the .exe program to install all of HP's or Cannon's garbage software. my print server for my work has all of it's drives about 4 megs or under just because when i download the file frmo the site i just tell windows where the folder with the .ini file is and its dll's that it needs. I instal the printer manualy in windows. when you do that its a rather small install.
RE[3]: go open hw specs, go
by Buck on Mon 10th Nov 2008 20:17
in reply to "RE[2]: go open hw specs, go"
Member since:2005-06-29
You can take out the cruft out of the drivers. At least it used to be in HP's Mac drivers case. Takes some time, but eventually you strip that onion down to just the bare drivers. Those even have their separate installer. You may try downloading the driver package for your prospective printer and see if this still applies.
Member since:
2005-06-29
This is the very reason why I refuse to buy a new printer. Mine broke like 18 months ago, but the amount of total and utter crap software and drivers the likes of Canon and HP put out simply stops me from buying their crap.
When I need to print, I either do it at university, or at my parents'. Until these guys learn to give me a driver download that's under 5MB in size (preferably under 1 MB in size) I will not buy a new printer.