Comments on: HP, please, just give me the darn drivers!

By: Lora Barr

Lora Barr — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:14:41 +0000

I bought the HP Officejet 6310 printer and couldn’t connect it to my HP Pavilion laptop. I called HP support three times and they were very nice but not helpful. Some expert from SupportSpace eventually install it for me, and all he needed to do is add some drivers - how come HP support didn’t manage to connect HP printer to HP laptop and someone from SupportSpace did it (I had to pay additional $25 to get it installed)? They are not professional with their own technology…

By: Dave the Gadget Guy

Dave the Gadget Guy — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:34:33 +0000

So, on my Mac Mini sportin’Leopard living room PC, I installed Leopard drivers for my HP Photosmart 2710 too-much-in-one that was found via Bonjour and by going that way, it did not install all of the crapware HP thinks is cool (but hangs and crashes my Windows XP (do not buy the Sony Vaio SZ-460N with Vista) machine…

This printer is Ethernet connected, but Apple generally does a nice job with USB drivers too; like with my old Epson photo printer.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:57:24 +0000

“Nice thing with the mac is, you can drag and drop delete.”

If only it was that easy EVERY time. I had a problem with a Canon scanner. Delete the application, think you’re done, but there’s still some obscurely name processes running. Took me awhile to find those files and kill them. I’ve also tried FoxTorrent a few times… Deleting the Firefox extension isn’t enough to remove it either. Must kill the RedSwoosh process and then dump the app. And lots of these guys seem to leave things in various personal or library directories, though they don’t do much (hopefully).

Jeremy, let us know how that device works out despite all the bloat. I’m in the market for something new. I don’t suppose the scanning features work if you network the AIO to an Apple router?

By: tivoboy

tivoboy — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:57:07 +0000

Well, company’s trying to install LOADS of junk is nothing new, but what is very annoying is, that HP DOES INDEED offer just a simple driver install, for WINDOWS but not for macs. ALmost every HP printer that I have put on my “integrated” network allows me to DL JUST the driver for WINDOWS, but offers only the complete package for mac.

Nice thing with the mac is, you can drag and drop delete. Just make sure the one file for the printer is in your printer library - everything else is bunk. However, disclaimer, there might be programs that monitor ink levels and whatnot, which may require the software. Your call on that one.