HP refusing to provide printer drivers for Photosmart 1115

Hello all & Microsoft,

I have been trying to download a driver for the HP Photosmart 1115. HP say:

We are sorry to inform you that there will be no Windows Vista printer
driver available for your HP product. Therefore your product will not work
with Windows Vista.
If you are using the Windows Vista operating system on your computer, please
consider upgrading to a newer HP product that is supported on Windows Vista.
HP has numerous products on the market that support Windows Vista:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/tradein/home_flash.html

This is outrageous, I am going to have to junk my perfectly good printer.
Can some pressure be applied to HP...its only writing a printer driver !

Alex

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http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com...print_fax_scan

If it's 'only writing a printer driver' then I'm sure you can do one
yourself!

HP launched that printer in 2001:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/pr...1/011001b.html

Therefore that printer model is over 5 years old.

First, have a think about what goes into developing drivers. Whilst you
may 'only' spend 4 weeks writing the code for the drivers, you then need
to fully test it. This may itself take a month or so to get completed
(don't forget you need to schedule time in the test lab, get the
equipment etc). Now test it on 64bit Vista, thus doubling the testing.

So, a rather conservative estimate is maybe 3 man months to develop a
printer driver for a class of product.

Now count the number of products HP has produced since 2000 and multiply
that with 3 man months per product.

Then weigh up the fact that, whilst you're spending all this time
writing drivers, your developers are unable to be working on drivers for
next month's new products. Add in the fact that you'll have to support
those drivers for the next X years (MS provide 10 years of support for
each OS delivery).

And finally, you're aware that those products are old, and you're aware
that by not developing Vista drivers, you may be able to encourage some
people to purchase new printers etc.

All in all, this seems to suggest that you're spending quite a
significant amount of money to support reasonably old products (in
computing 5 years is quite a while) and whilst doing so, reducing the
market for new products.

Had the product been released in 2005, then it would be more of a
problem. Don't forget - this particular printer was released prior to
Windows XP!

And finally - HP are not forcing you to dump your printer. They have
provided support up to and including XP. No one is forcing you to use
Vista, if you don't want to spend £100 on a new printer, then don't
spend £200 on Vista. ;)

Oh, and really, I do mean finally! You may find that the XP drivers
will work in Vista. *May* being the important point! I'm running the
XP drivers for my HP LasjerJet 1200 as the MS drivers for this printer
were generic and not very good (read, impossible to print more than 1
copy of a document, even if you selected multiple copies in the print
options). Going to the XP drivers, everything worked fine. I've not
checked in the last few weeks to see if HP have released new Vista
drivers for it.

Hope that helps,

David

[Bpalm@aol]

HP are a law unto themselves.. they also want to sell new products..

Thanks for the tip. My 1115 just printed its first test page since installing
vista 3 weeks ago. Phew!

just installed my photosmart 1115 with the 7200 driver and it appears to be working fine:thankyou

I was never so frustrated in my life. After reading everyone's blogs, I finally solved the issue by selecting the dot4 port. It took 10 tries but my hp 1115 is now operating. Thank you! Thank you! Thanks to everyone.

When and if you install VISTA I suggest you just take a deep breath and
see what happens.

I can't speak for old printers but I just installed VISTA Business RTM
with my very old HP SJ 5P scsi connected scanner using an old Adaptec
19160 controller card and both were detected by VISTA device manager
and showed up without any flags.

The only thing I had to do to get the scanner to work perfectly, as it
has done under XP, W2K, WIN98 and probably WIN95, was to install the
old HP Deskscan 2.9 software and bingo it scan and copies beautifully.

I'd be surprised if your Photosmart printer did not work also. Maybe if
there are some special features in the HP XP driver they may not be
available if VISTA does not set it up fully with what it has on board
but in that case I would try installing the XP sofware package that
came with the printer and see what happens.

PS If necessary you can buy an HP PS 8250 printer from NewEgg at the
moment for $75 .... wonderful 6 color printer with ink tanks.

[dominiquechassot]

Bonjour !

Je parle en français. Les drivers XP ne fonctionnent pas pour Vista en ce qui concerne l'imprimante HP ohotosmart 1115 et le scanner HP scanjet 2200c.

J'ai posé la question à HP et voici la réponse :

*******************************************************
Cher Monsieur Chassot,

Merci pour votre e-mail.
Je suis désolé mais les produits que vous possédez ne sont pas supportés sous Windows Vista.

Veuillez agréer, Monsieur Chassot, nos salutations les plus distinguées,

Alain

Assistance clientèle HP - Equipe Scanjet.
*******************************************************

Pour ma part, je pense qu'il s'agit tout simplement d'un manque de volonté de satisfaire la clientèle. Dès lors, je vais effectivement changer de matériel mais je n'achèterai plus jamais HP. En effet, j'ai du matériel bien plus vieux qui fonctionne encore à merveille sous Windows Vista. Alors... adieu HP !!!

Vous ferriez mieux de poster dans les groups de langue Francais qui
existe.

I have my very old HP SJ5P working by using the old Deskscan 2.9
software which uses TWAIN -- this worked for me in Windows 2000 and in
XP and I see others posting for Epson scanners that TWAIN is the answer
there.

If you search through the folders for General and for Hardware here for
HP you will find a number of useful suggestions and you may find that a
later driver from HP will work on your earlier devices.

Before you write off HP see what others are saying about Canon and
Epson who are giving the same answers.

As consumers, we actually have the final decision power: I took my new
VISTA-loaded HP computer back when I discovered all the cmpatability
problems.

Hp blames VISTA, MS blames HP, no-one wants to support old printers....FINE !
I don't need to spend my money to be frustrated.

Int the past, I have always used PCs, but this is nmow a big incentive for
me tro check out Macs and alternative PC operating systems.
have you noticed the relative directions of MS, HP, and Apple stocks lately ?

I recently upgraded my PC and it came with Windows Vista. I have three HP
peripherals (2 printers and 1 scanner - the latter being an expensive item,
less than 5 years old). NONE of the three will install, because HP provides
no drivers for them compatible with Windows Vista. Incredible!
Just some comments about David Hearn's points:
1. Microsoft may not write drivers, but it seems they have some
responsibility to their customers to produce operating systems that are
compatible with existing equimpment - be it HP or other brands.
2. I beg to differ. Older versions of Microsoft's operating system become
increasingly incompatible with various applications, forcing users to upgrade
in order to function. When I purchased a new PC, Windows Vista was my only
choice.
3. I called HP, and was told that they don't plan to provide any
Vista-compatible driver upgrades for any of their products older than 24
months (not 5 years). Now that's ridiculous! I don't care how much time it
takes to provide an appropriate driver, HP and MS have the resources to do it.
4. The new PCs I hade to choose from don't come with Windows XP. Besides,
if I did get a copy of XP, it's just a matter of time before MS quits
providing support and upgrades, and I'll have to get Vista anyway.
The bottom line is that HP and MS are in this to make as much money as
possible, and the more often they can get everyone to buy new software and
hardware, the better it is for them. They have little motivation to do
otherwise.

The 1115 works great with the HP Photosmart 7200 driver included with Vista.
Install by saying you want to pick your own driver. Select HP and then
select the 7200. (There may be other HP drivers that it will work with also,
but this one works perfectly with my Vista setup.) So...it is even more
outrageous that HP won't "provide" a driver, as it already has drivers that
work with the 1115. They just want you to dump a perfectly good printer! My
next printer will not be a HP.

[repo]

Originally Posted by Jo

The 1115 works great with the HP Photosmart 7200 driver included with Vista.
Install by saying you want to pick your own driver. Select HP and then
select the 7200. (There may be other HP drivers that it will work with also,
but this one works perfectly with my Vista setup.) So...it is even more
outrageous that HP won't "provide" a driver, as it already has drivers that
work with the 1115. They just want you to dump a perfectly good printer! My
next printer will not be a HP.

"DIBBSON" wrote:

>
> If you want to get your 1115 working, load a generic driver in windows.
> it's very easy to do and it will allow you to have full function of your
> printer. mine has been working since the day i installedl vista ultimate
> 64 bit.
>
>
> --
> DIBBSON
>

After installing a high speed pci parallel adapter to my new computer (PCI-CARD) I installed the printer with the 7200 driver. Works Great!! Thanks

I found a solution! uninstall printer. go to system and uninstall
generic printer driver. then go to printers in control panel.
Open and add printer. when asked what printer to install pick hp
photosmart 7200, when asked what port pick dot4
good luck


--
zanw

[Turizzmo]

Using the 7200 series driver did the trick. Thanks a ton everyone!!

It really is upsetting that HP can't supply a driver though, or at least the answer given here in this forum. I don't think my next printer will be HP.

Thanks again :)

Thanks so much! My Photosmart 1115 is connected via usb to Vista 64
Home Premium. I noticed that the Photosmart 7200 driver did not offer
the duplex (2-sided) printing option so I defined a second printer on
port dot4 and specified the HP Deskjet 970cse driver which seems to work
fine with just black & white text from Wordpad. From the test page, the
970cse driver uses far fewer files which may mean that it would not be a
good choice for printing images; I am not sure.

zanw;557024 Wrote:
> I found a solution! uninstall printer. go to system and uninstall
> generic printer driver. then go to printers in control panel.
> Open and add printer. when asked what printer to install pick hp
> photosmart 7200, when asked what port pick dot4
> good luck


--
VLeigh