Windows 7 printer conflict

Plec · 7 May 2009 at 23:40

Ok, i have an aging hp Photosmart 7350 which serves my grey scale printouts very well.

Windws 7 recognised it on install and listed it in device manager with a small question mark and in the control panel under printers it had it as an unknown device. (Plus it wouldn't print)

So i uninstalled it and used the windows vista trick of 'add printer' and assigned it with the deskjet 5550 drivers - see link for details.

This hasn't worked, however, and i'm at a loss as to what to do next.

Plec · 8 May 2009 at 13:23

Ok, this is an image of what is listed under printers in the contol panel:

(It's also now found a Transceiver - but i have no idea what it's confusing that with.)

And this is how the printer is listed in the device manager:

As you can see it's virtually convinced itself it's found it and the IEEE 1284.4 properties state that the device is working properly. But then you go further down and it also has it listed as an 'other device'.

In addition to the previous post i've tried to force windows to find drivers through the net and in the driver section of the system 32 folder but no luck.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received as i'm going to have to re-install xp if i can't get it sorted in the next few days. (Apart from buy a new printer

)

Plec

paintguy · 8 May 2009 at 21:09

I'm not really sure if this helps, but I have the same printer, and followed the HP instructions to the letter and it's working fine. Irritatingly the Devices and Printers window still shows one instance of the printer as an unspecified device (the one Win7 'found' at install), but it's also listed under Printers and Faxes just how it should be.

Plec · 8 May 2009 at 22:21

Thanks for the reply paintguy, appreciated.

I was worried i would get a response like yours - in the fact that i too followed the hp instructions to the letter but windows failed to respond in kind.

I'm concerned that's it's got stuck in a loop - as i've tried deleting all the drivers and uninstalling the device and then starting form scratch but to no success.

I'm probably not deleting every known trace of the printer so it's finding the same fault when i try to re-install. I'm using the unintall device/drivers in the device manager and then deleting it from the control panel - but this may be not enough?

Thanks for the reply - at least i know it's possible to get it working if i have to do a re-install.

paintguy · 8 May 2009 at 22:40

I actually didn't do anything to try and uninstall the original instance of the printer, just started afresh with the instructions above. Maybe that's the difference, and Windows is effectively fighting you and trying to install the printer for itself :confused:

I'll certainly be unplugging it when I come round to installing the RTM though!

Plec · 8 May 2009 at 23:01

paintguy said:
I actually didn't do anything to try and uninstall the original instance of the printer, just started afresh with the instructions above. Maybe that's the difference, and Windows is effectively fighting you and trying to install the printer for itself

That probably is the difference - thanks for letting me know.

I did uninstall windows 7's attempt at trying to identify the printer before following the hp instructions - so, hopefully, on my next install i'll try your way and i'll have a functioning printer (if i can't resolve it the old fashioned way first.).

Thanks again, that bit of info may have saved me a lot of grief on my next install.

Plec · 11 May 2009 at 00:04

I've managed to resolve it and have posted my fix just in case someone else out there is having similar issues.

I did still use the desket 5550 drivers but i had to add them to the device that windows had already found rather than using the 'add new new printer' feature as instructed by hp web site. This was probably because my printer was already attached when i installed windows - as i had hoped it would find it automatically.

My advice is if you have a printer which, in vista, required you to install another machines drivers to get it running, is don't leave your printer attached during the windows install. However, if you did - apply the drivers to the device windows 7 identified as your printer rather than the recommended 'add printer' feature as this confuses windows 7 and results in a hardware conflict.

Hope this is of help to someone.

Plec