Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.

Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

 

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:

> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
> Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>
> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.

Easier than what? Major Linux distributions have done that for years.

 

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
>Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>
>Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.

Just a few days ago a friend of mine connected an old Epson printer to
her new Win 7 laptop and Windows happily installed it, but now she's
reporting that she can't find the ink monitoring and head cleaning
tools. I'm assuming Windows simply installed its own stripped down
driver, which doesn't include those functions. Are you having a
similar experience?

 

ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote in
news:8hojuoFcalU16@mid.individual.net:

> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:
>
>> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the
>> first time. Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and
>> installed it.
>>
>> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>
> Easier than what? Major Linux distributions have done that
> for years.

Mine didn't.

An HP1300 (?) series printer was dropped at my house by the
wifes mother, this could be the cheapest printer HP ever made.
It was plugged into the PC while using Windows, and had Windows
drivers installed, and I printed some stuff.

I then rebooted and expected K*****u to pop up some notice that
it found new hardware, and asked if I wanted to search for
drivers, or asking me if it can or something similar.

But it did not. It did none of that. So I went to the Printer
setup, and low and behold, it was there. I printed a test page,
opened a document in OO and printed that also. It seemed to work
as it should.

 

"Char Jackson" <none@none.invalid> wrote in message
news:hc7eb65ipl8ibpvohp170ni6fa35q7ltb9@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown
> <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>>Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
>>Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>>
>>Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>
> Just a few days ago a friend of mine connected an old Epson printer to
> her new Win 7 laptop and Windows happily installed it, but now she's
> reporting that she can't find the ink monitoring and head cleaning
> tools. I'm assuming Windows simply installed its own stripped down
> driver, which doesn't include those functions. Are you having a
> similar experience?
>

The 'striped down' drivers in W7 were supplied by the vendor. If FULL
support is desired, get the driver (if there is one) from the vendor. Search
for it in USA, Europe, and Asian vendor support sites; lots of drivers
aren't released in all market areas. (UMAX Scanners are one; lots of new
drivers were released for Europe that weren't available from the UMAX-USA
support site.)

 

relic wrote:
>
> "Char Jackson" <none@none.invalid> wrote in message
> news:hc7eb65ipl8ibpvohp170ni6fa35q7ltb9@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown
>> <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>>> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first
>>> time. Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>>>
>>> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>>
>> Just a few days ago a friend of mine connected an old Epson printer
>> to her new Win 7 laptop and Windows happily installed it, but now
>> she's reporting that she can't find the ink monitoring and head
>> cleaning tools. I'm assuming Windows simply installed its own
>> stripped down driver, which doesn't include those functions. Are
>> you having a similar experience?
>>
>
> The 'striped down' drivers in W7 were supplied by the vendor. If FULL
> support is desired, get the driver (if there is one) from the
> vendor. Search for it in USA, Europe, and Asian vendor support sites;
> lots of drivers aren't released in all market areas. (UMAX Scanners
> are one; lots of new drivers were released for Europe that weren't
> available from the UMAX-USA support site.)

That is why it is a good idea to install the support software that comes
with the printer, even if it seems to be working fine with the W7
supplied drivers. There will almost certainly be a link for drivers and
updates.
--
Crash

"The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion."
~ Arnold H. Glasow ~

 

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:14:12 -0500, Char Jackson wrote:
>
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown
> <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> >Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
> >Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
> >
> >Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>
> Just a few days ago a friend of mine connected an old Epson printer to
> her new Win 7 laptop and Windows happily installed it, but now she's
> reporting that she can't find the ink monitoring and head cleaning
> tools. I'm assuming Windows simply installed its own stripped down
> driver, which doesn't include those functions. Are you having a
> similar experience?

Nope, it seems to be the same Brother driver that I've known and
loved for years in XP. And that one came on a disk with the printer.
This one, I'm pretty sure, Windows downloaded from Brother's site; it
was definitely downloaded from *somewhere*.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

 

On 14 Oct 2010, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

> Nope, it seems to be the same Brother driver that I've known and
> loved for years in XP. And that one came on a disk with the
> printer. This one, I'm pretty sure, Windows downloaded from
> Brother's site; it was definitely downloaded from *somewhere*.

I'm certain that it did NOT download it from Brother's site.
Programming like that would be a recipe for failure whenever Brother
would decide to restructure their site. The driver was probably one of
the many that came bundled on the Windows install disk. It's not
unusual.

 

On 10/14/2010 09:55, ray wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:
>
>> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
>> Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>>
>> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>
> Easier than what? Major Linux distributions have done that for years.

Provided you blundered into one that was supported.

 

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:08:23 -0500, Bob I wrote:

> On 10/14/2010 09:55, ray wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:
>>
>>> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
>>> Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>>>
>>> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>>
>> Easier than what? Major Linux distributions have done that for years.
>
> Provided you blundered into one that was supported.

That's really not very difficult to do. Generally, if it says MAC on the
box as well as 'Windows' it will work fine.

 

"Stan Brown" <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:14:12 -0500, Char Jackson wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown
>> <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>>> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
>>> Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>>>
>>> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>>
>> Just a few days ago a friend of mine connected an old Epson printer to
>> her new Win 7 laptop and Windows happily installed it, but now she's
>> reporting that she can't find the ink monitoring and head cleaning
>> tools. I'm assuming Windows simply installed its own stripped down
>> driver, which doesn't include those functions. Are you having a
>> similar experience?
>
> Nope, it seems to be the same Brother driver that I've known and
> loved for years in XP. And that one came on a disk with the printer.
> This one, I'm pretty sure, Windows downloaded from Brother's site; it
> was definitely downloaded from *somewhere*.

Windows Update doesn't search or install drivers from sites of
manufacturers, only from their own database
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx
You can search also manually there.

--
Helmut Rohrbeck
http://www.helmrohr.de/Kontakt.htm
Microsoft Support Center:
http://support.microsoft.com/?ln=en

 

On 10/14/10 120 PM, relic wrote:
>
> "Char Jackson" <none@none.invalid> wrote in message
> news:hc7eb65ipl8ibpvohp170ni6fa35q7ltb9@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 102:42 -0400, Stan Brown
>> <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>>> Today I hooked my printer into my Win 7 laptop for the first time.
>>> Windows found the driver, downloaded it, and installed it.
>>>
>>> Some things are definitely easier with Windows 7.
>>
>> Just a few days ago a friend of mine connected an old Epson printer to
>> her new Win 7 laptop and Windows happily installed it, but now she's
>> reporting that she can't find the ink monitoring and head cleaning
>> tools. I'm assuming Windows simply installed its own stripped down
>> driver, which doesn't include those functions. Are you having a
>> similar experience?
>>
>
> The 'striped down' drivers in W7 were supplied by the vendor. If FULL
> support is desired, get the driver (if there is one) from the vendor.
> Search for it in USA, Europe, and Asian vendor support sites; lots of
> drivers aren't released in all market areas. (UMAX Scanners are one;
> lots of new drivers were released for Europe that weren't available from
> the UMAX-USA support site.)

Canon is also famous for having Linux printer drivers available
everywhere but it's US website.


--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Professional
Thunderbird 3.1.4
Friday, October 15, 2010 27:40 PM

 

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 205:47 -0400, Nil wrote:
>
> On 14 Oct 2010, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote in
> alt.windows7.general:
>
> > Nope, it seems to be the same Brother driver that I've known and
> > loved for years in XP. And that one came on a disk with the
> > printer. This one, I'm pretty sure, Windows downloaded from
> > Brother's site; it was definitely downloaded from *somewhere*.
>
> I'm certain that it did NOT download it from Brother's site.
> Programming like that would be a recipe for failure whenever Brother
> would decide to restructure their site. The driver was probably one of
> the many that came bundled on the Windows install disk. It's not
> unusual.

On Fri, 15 Oct 2010 198:04 +0200, Helmut Rohrbeck wrote:
> Windows Update doesn't search or install drivers from sites of
> manufacturers, only from their own database
> http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx
> You can search also manually there.

Helmut's explanation makes sense to me. Presumably hardware
manufacturers make sure to keep Microsoft's site updated with
drivers.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...