Win7 driver frustration

[ChrisGreaves]

Am I doing something wrong?

For about a week now I've been struggling to get my "old" system working on my new system - an entry-level Win7 notebook Compaq Presario CQ62. My old stuff includes a HP2600N color laser printer, a Canon 3200/3200F flatbed scanner, and more.

All too often I find that the CD supplied with the hardware won't install under Win7. I'm disappointed but not surprised. Who knew 10 years ago that we'd be using 64-bit chips, right? Same way nobody today (except me, I guess) anticipates 128-bit chips in 2020. But I digress.

I trot off to do a Google search for, say, HP2600N or Canon 3200F drivers, and get bogged down in a plethora of web sites, most of which urge me - with large green FREE DOWNLOAD buttons, to download software which installs, runs, and then says that it can continue if I fork over $64.00.

I'm canny.
I restrict my right-clicks to what appear to be manufacturer sites - for example this one - which on reflection isn't a Canon proprietary site after all.

I seem to be doing something wrong.

I figure that
(1) In many cases manufacturers see no profit in producing Win7 drivers for me and the three other people still using Cancon Scan 3200 machines (or HP2600N printers or ...). Customer relationships notwithstanding.
(2) In some cases (HP2600N) I finally tracked down a VISTA driver which, presumably at 64bit, seems to be working well under Win7, even though the HP site only goes as far as WinXP for the HP2600N. That is, sometimes a Vista driver will suffice; it's worth trying.
(3) In many cases cursory advice would be to stop wasting my time (and yours) and spend $100 on a new scanner or a new printer (and jettison my 1/2-used cartridges on the HP2600N) and [bitter] spend more time learning how to setup and program the Win7-compatible whizzo-all-in-one-day-wonder [/bitter].

Am I alone in frustration, or have those of you who have gone before me, er, gone through this soul-searching too?

I've never been closer to tossing in my 43-year old love affair with computers and ramping up my passion for vermicomposting.

P.S. I've had to abandon Office 2000 because Outlook 2000 won't run under Win7, so I'm finally at Office 2002, learning which menu letters don't apply as they used to. (I forgot to add bitter /bitter, but you know ...)

[HansV]

VueScan 9 Scanning Software for Windows 7, Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) and Linux supports the Canon 3200F and works on Windows 7 64bits - they claim...

[ChrisGreaves]

VueScan 9 Scanning Software for Windows 7, supports the Canon 3200F and works on Windows 7 64bits - they claim...

Thanks Hans.
I have no doubt that it does, and have downloaded it and installed it to prove my confidence(!)

But it doesn't "see" the scanner because the scanner is not installed - Windows cannot find the drivers, and Win7 will not accept the installation from the Canon CD.

Hence my internet search for drivers.

Hence my question: Am I doing something wrong in expecting to find drivers for hardware on the internet (without being lured into honeypots of free software that costs $64 per pop)
I've spent a week so far migrating from WinXP; I know it's time to change, but Oh! my little personal address file which has run in Buttonware's PCF.EXE is no longer useable, so I migrate that to Access (and now don't have a decent form) and so on, so I feel the cost of searching for drivers as yet-another-half-hour to add to the cost of Win7.

I appreciate your tracking down the omnivorous VueScan, but it is just more deadweight without hardware drivers, and that is my ongoing problem.

Am I expecting too much when I try to get existing hardware running under Win7?
Has there been a general abandonment of hardware?
Is this a Great Divide that we all cross?

[HansV]

Wisdom comes with hindsight - 64-bits Windows is not the best choice if you want to run older hardware. Many existing drivers will still work in 32-bits Windows 7, but not in 64-bits...

[wasbit]

HP 2600N Drivers including Windows 7
- http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te ... taskId=135" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

link wraps, so - http://preview.tinyurl.com/35mvte" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your CD will probably not include suitable drivers for Windows 7 because of its age.

You may also be experiencing problems if your Windows 7 is the starter edition rather than Home Premium.

Edit: bad grammar & to say "oooooh, fancy software to stop links wrapping"

[DaveA]

Per http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/c ... ifications" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
OS Compatibility Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP

I do NOT think you will find any Vista or Windows 7 (let alone 64 bit) drivers for this model of scanner.

[Hey Jude]

Here is an interesting concept: try a 64 bit Vista driver

http://www.w7forums.com/hp-color-laserj ... t1263.html

[ChrisGreaves]

HP 2600N Drivers including Windows 7

Thanks wasbit. I think this is one of the sites i tracked down a day or two ago after floating through the web-o-sphere for an hour or so.
It is good to be confirmed!

You may also be experiencing problems if your Windows 7 is the starter edition rather than Home Premium.

Thanks too for this "heads-up".
The Netbook is Starter Edition, but this Notebook is Home Premium.
But please see also my later post (in about 15 minutes)

[ChrisGreaves]

I do NOT think you will find any Vista or Windows 7 (let alone 64 bit) drivers for this model of scanner.

Thanks DaveA for this confirmation (but please see also my later post in about 15 minutes).

[ChrisGreaves]

Here is an interesting concept: try a 64 bit Vista driver

Thanks Hey Jude. I think this is what I ended up doing for the HP2600N, but in general I will be out of luck for most of my hardware 5+ years or older.
And perhaps even my little cassette-tape recorder purchased three months ago and not yet tested.

[ChrisGreaves]

Wisdom comes with hindsight - 64-bits Windows is not the best choice if you want to run older hardware. Many existing drivers will still work in 32-bits Windows 7, but not in 64-bits...

Thanks Hans.
Based on what I've read so far, I emailed the test below to a friend of mine who had been asking about 64-bit a few months ago. I had NOT differentiated between 64-bit hardware and 64-bit Windows, but i suspect that for me, 64-bit anything is a mistake.
My conclusion (at the foot of the lengthy text) is that I got stampeded into 64-bit when my laptop burned out two weeks ago.


(quote starts)

For me Windows 7 Home Premium in 64-bit mode is a disaster.



http://www.techspot.com/guides/177-windows-install-32bit-64bit/
The short answer is that you should go with Windows 7 64-bit unless you’re running a system well into its antiquity where driver support is going to become an issue.

My biggest problem to date is that my Canon Scanner, HP2600N color printer, and probably my cassette-tape transcriber do not, and never will have drivers for 64-bit Windows. In a few cases I can locate a Vista driver that might work, but the prospect of having to but new hardware and junk stuff that has served me well for 5+ years appalls me.

http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-64-bit-vs-32-bit-t484.html
You’ll need software specifically optimized for 64 bit processing to take advantage of any speed improvements.

Not me. I doubt that even my occasional mass-conversion runs would benefit by processor speed. I suspect that repetitive processing of a set of documents benefits from more RAM (the file stays in a memory cache) and/or hard drive speed.

Most articles seem to indicate that games are the main beneficiaries, but that may because most article-writers don't know many Rick Procters or Chris Greaves.


http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-64-bit-vs-32-bit-t484.html (again)
16 bit applications will no longer run.

This hits me hard. I use ToDo.com to keep track of birthdays, LOG.exe to log date/time to log files, and yesterday, Christmas Card Output Day, I discovered that Buttonware's PCF.EXE, which has held my name-and-address files since 1987 or thereabouts is toast. That means I have to port the data to Access (done!), but now do not have a form that lets me snapshot address details to an envelope file, and so on. More retrograde-development work for me.


On top of it all, I realize that I have confused "Windows 7" with "64-bit".
Windows 7 is Windows 7, and regardless of whether it is 32- or 64-bit, the new OS represents a painful learning process. All those commands which ran off my two fingertips like quicksilver no longer work. (Explorer: File, Enter, Enter to create a new folder).
By using Win7 64-bit I have added driver and DOS confusion to my learning-ramp, and that is an UN-necessary evil.

So why am I using Win7 64-bit? Because it came pre-loaded on this 2GB Compaq Presario CQ62 Notebook.
And the more I think about it the more stupid that seems.
This is an entry-level machine, and Win7-64-bit can't be shown to advantage on a 2GB machine.
Who is going to add more than 2GB RAM (bringing it to the 32-bit 4GB address limit) to an entry-level machine? Not me!
If I felt that my life centered around massive computational loads (e.g. predicting the 7-day future loads on the Royal Bank's ATM terminals) I'd not have bought 1 2GB Notebook from BestBuy; I'd have bought a customized machine from a fabricator.


So, I suspect I'm off to BestBuy etc this week to purchase a real DVD (plastic disk, not cardboard key) with a copy of 32-bit Win7, if such a beast exists, and will spend the best part of two days re-installing 32-bit application software and 32-bit drivers for my hardware peripherals.

⁽¹⁾And I have to buy a copy of Win7-32bit, because my three (!) copies WinXP won't install on this 64-bit machine!

Which, in the end, means that my purchase of a 64-bit entry-level computer was a mistake.
I should have looked for a 32-bit machine?

⁽¹⁾ This presupposes that a 64-bit computer will run a 32-bit Win7 operating system.

[Hey Jude]

I remember when I pre-ordered Win 7 it came with both 32-bit and 64-bit discs so I had the option of installing whichever I chose. I also researched quite extensively what dead ends I would encounter with drivers etc. I opted for 32-bit after running all the "tests" for compatibility. Something else I read was this; ..."As for obtaining the 32 bit media, if you know a friend or colleague who has a 32 bit version of Windows 7 that is equivalent to the 64 bit edition that came with your system, you could use it and use your product key to activate it on your system...." Maybe this is an option for you as opposed to buying another copy??????

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/For ... 81283fe557

[ChrisGreaves]

HP 2600N Drivers including Windows 7 - link wraps, so - http://preview.tinyurl.com/35mvte" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks again, wasbit. I came back to this post to use as a reference point.
Having installed the 64-bit drivers on the new Notebook, I grabbed the file "hp_CLJ_2600-HB-pnp-win32-en.exe" for the 32-bit Windows Starter edition on the Acer netbook. Since Win7-Starter wasn't listed as an os i went for "Windows 7 (32-bit)"

I figured I'd not even both trying to clone the drivers across the network.

[ChrisGreaves]

Am I doing something wrong?... My old stuff includes a HP2600N color laser printer,

(9 months later).
Well, turns out I was.
This morning I discovered that during the Add printer stage I can ask Windows7 to look for drivers.
Imagine THAT!

HP2600N.png

My CD, supplied with the printer years ago, has outdated 32-bit(?) drivers that won't run/install on this Win7/Home Premium/64-bit system.
I couldn't find any drivers when i browsed the Internet (9 months ago).
But when I click the "Windows Update" command and wait two minutes or so, up pops the driver.

I ("Add Local Printer") installed the driver on this notebook, then ("Add Network Printer") added the two printers which I'd set up on the old WinXp system (BigBeigeBox) as HP2600N and HP2600N_2Up.
So the Notebook now has 3 HP2600N printers
(1) local, which I'll never use unless the BBB dies, in which case I'll plug the USB cable into the Notebook.
(2) 2 networked devices which I use several times a day.

This is unsettling, because now I wonder how many of my earlier frustrating issues could have been resolved with a little more patience (or even helpful suggestions from Windows "Have you thought about trying my Windows Update button? just asking ...")

[HansV]

You're asking for the return of Clippy?

Clippy.jpg

[ChrisGreaves]

You're asking for the return of Clippy?

[HansV]

HAL.png

[agibsonsw]

Thought I might borrow this post as my question is closely related

With my Windows 7 64-bit laptop I installed my Canon MP220 software from its CD. It seemed to work fine initially but I don't think it is. Windows reports that the printer is installed and working, but it's been freezing/slowing my computer, I believe.

I found a Canon module download (for Windows 7 64bit) but it reported that it couldn't find my printer - it was plugged in, and on, at the time.

Would you uninstall the software and let Windows (Add Printer) find and install the correct drivers?
This would just install the drivers, and not all the other gumpf, which is fine/great! But would I be unable to do things like test,re-aligning, print-heads,etc.?
I also wouldn't have the scanning software. Will Windows Scan be able to replicate this, and produce .pdfs? Or is there better (free) scanning software?

Thanks for suggestions, Andy.

[agibsonsw]

Well, I went for it and am very pleasantly surprised

I uninstalled all the Canon software and plugged the printer in. Windows 7 recognised it straight-away and installed drivers in seconds; printed the test page and I'm away!

I don't need all the (lots of..) Canon software. I can do whatever I need from the printer properties and the printers control panel, and even right-clicking the printer shows a scan option.

I could get to like this Windows 7 thing

[ChrisGreaves]

Am I doing something wrong?

AND ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!
I have Resurrected about 5 times over the past 4 days. It's my day job now, seems like.

The initial (Dec 2010) installation annoyed me; the DELL monitor no longer was usable at 1280x1024, whereas it had been on the earlier laptop.
Hans told me (I think) that the Compaq Presario Notebook graphics card should support it.
I couldn't get it work; which may explain why I've been so snappy these past 10 months.
I like micro-fine resolution, because my eyes/brain can roam faster than my wrist/mouse. "Cram as much as you can in front of your eyes" is my family motto.

Yesterday I somehow coaxed 1280x1024 out of the DELL. But I was so busy de-dynamicizing ⁽¹⁾ my hard drives I didn't take notes on monitors.
After today's resurrection I can't coax more than 1024x768.
:stumped:

Five minutes ago I realized that I still had the basic-installation "Show display on both monitors" (or similar), and in this mode, the resolution appears as a lowest-common-denominator.

I switched to "show only on monitor 2" and waddyaknow! I've got 1280x1024 again, because the DELL is no longer in a 3-legged race with the notebook display.

At least that's how I'd describe it.

This goes on, I might start to enjoy computers again ...

⁽¹⁾ I just made that up.