Man gets Vista to work with printer!

[Lanya]

Breaking news~!
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141343.asp

[Amianthus]

Just goes to show you that people should pay attention to what they're doing. Installing a driver meant for XP on Vista was a idiotic thing to do.

[Brassmask]

I know the inclination by those of us who deal with this very kind of thing daily is to call the user a moron for not knowing the difference; but the reality is that though you know that it was a bad idea and I know it was a bad idea, the average person does not know that it is a bad idea.

Clearly if the disk says for Windows XP and doesn't say that it is for Vista, one should assume that one should not run that disk but, you know and I know that the average person at home does not know the difference. 

I spend 8 hours a day talking to people about their printers and making them work with their Macs but before that I did support for Windows and most people were calling about Windows Vista problems.  (I often say, "One in ten Vista users LOVE Vista.  One in ten Leopard users HATES Leopard.")

Vista is a poor product.  Yes, the disk that the poor, old guy was not compatible with Vista but the problem was aggravated by Vista's security.  When I did support for Windows, we would often get an error when trying to install the software from our printer's disk.  The error is something like there is no more disk available.  I imagine that is what was happening to the old guy when he tried to install the correct driver.

I can see it both ways.  A guy in 70's shouldn't have any busy knowing about whether or not he should run the disk that came with his printer on a Vista machine.  If Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Apple) spent half the time educating people on basic software usage that they do blaming their customers for not knowing how to use their own products, the companies would be worth twice what they are today.

Half of customer support is educating the customer in a way that doesn't belittle them or offend them.  Sadly, a lot of people in the customer IT support field don't seem to and don't seem interested in understanding that.

[Amianthus]

I know the inclination by those of us who deal with this very kind of thing daily is to call the user a moron for not knowing the difference; but the reality is that though you know that it was a bad idea and I know it was a bad idea, the average person does not know that it is a bad idea.

I am still of the opinion that if you don't know how to work a machine, you should leave it alone.

Yes, that includes cars. If you don't understand the basic functioning of the various parts, you shouldn't drive it. I know that means that probably 80% of the current US population wouldn't drive right now. But if they made knowledge of basic mechanics part of the driving test, most people would learn it, and lots of stupid things that are done to and with cars would be avoided. Same with all other machines.

The "average person" should take computer classes before owning a computer. The "average person" should take firearms training before owning a firearm. The same can be said of any fairly complex tool.

I was watching some episodes of Jeremiah today¹ - apparently JMS agrees with me. One of the lines was "Don't stick your hand into the machine until you know how it works."

¹ I love my Roku.

[Brassmask]

I concur that everyone should take some kind of class but that is never going to happen especially in this country because we don't believe in prevention as much as cure.

A 70 or 80-year-old guy who just wants to see pictures of his grandbabies and read the latest tractor news is not going to go take a class that will teach him how to install and uninstall a printer. 

In reality, a company could make millions of dollars if they would simply come up with an OS that knows every printer and scanner and copier and so forth so that when Mr. Old Guy plugs the usb cable into his computer, the printer simply works.

And Mac has done that but there are so many caveats and possible mishaps that can happen.  What I deal with daily is people who have Leopard (OS 10.5) which, literally, does have a CUPS driver for just about every printer manufactured so that when you plug in the usb cable, you can literally start playing because the OS adds the printer.

Where Mac royally f'ed up is they didn't come up with a way to tell the customer not to run the disk that comes with the printer because it CORRUPTS the OS's built-in driver causing the printer not to work even though the printer is added.  Secondly, they didn't come up with built-in SCANNER drivers.  There are hundreds of printers that also scanners out there and the scanner requires a separate twain but for some reason, Mac didn't want to create their own versions of those so the customer who has Leopard must download the new Twain driver from the printer company's website 'cause the one on the disk that came with the printer isn't compatible with Leopard.

I really don't understand why Apple just doesn't have a printer company produce a printer/scanner/copier/fax machine that is tailored to work with a Mac and that is sold as an Apple printer (meaning under their brand name with their own software included).  I'm sure it is an economic problem but I know users want to streamline.  Most regular users just want to plug in all the cables and start playing and I feel that Apple (and definitely Microsoft) is not giving the customer what they want.

[Amianthus]

And Mac has done that but there are so many caveats and possible mishaps that can happen.  What I deal with daily is people who have Leopard (OS 10.5) which, literally, does have a CUPS driver for just about every printer manufactured so that when you plug in the usb cable, you can literally start playing because the OS adds the printer.

CUPS won't work with one of my older printers (I use CUPS on my Linux boxes, it was developed for Linux originally).

Every printer I have I just plugged into my Vista laptop and it worked without adding any drivers. Only thing I've had that REQUIRED a driver to be installed under Vista was my cell phone. The webcam worked but some of the advanced features (face finding) did not, so I downloaded a Vista driver from the manufacturer's website. If I wasn't interested in that feature (or didn't know about it) no driver install would have been needed.

Oh yeah, scanner setup (some of my printers are multifunction) worked without adding any drivers (plugged 'em in and they showed up) under Vista and that NEVER worked without a custom driver under XP.

Vista is better than XP in my experience.

[Brassmask]

Vista is better than XP in my experience.

I've heard people say that and in my experience they have all been IT people.  I can't ever remember talking to a "regular" user and hearing them say they love Vista.

As for supporting printers on it, I've dreaded taking any calls where the user has Vista. 

[Amianthus]

As for supporting printers on it, I've dreaded taking any calls where the user has Vista. 

Well, what I would do is have the user rollback his system to before he installed the driver (using the system restore) and then just have him plug his printer in without installing anything and use the online driver update process built into Vista. Chances are it will work just fine.

[Brassmask]

As for supporting printers on it, I've dreaded taking any calls where the user has Vista. 

Well, what I would do is have the user rollback his system to before he installed the driver (using the system restore) and then just have him plug his printer in without installing anything and use the online driver update process built into Vista. Chances are it will work just fine.

Do you have to enable System Restore?  Or is it automatically on from the get-go?

[Amianthus]

Do you have to enable System Restore?  Or is it automatically on from the get-go?

It was turned on in my system at delivery. Don't know if that was part of Dell's install process or if it comes from Microsloth that way.

[hnumpah]

Well, what I would do is have the user rollback his system to before he installed the driver (using the system restore) and then just have him plug his printer in without installing anything and use the online driver update process built into Vista. Chances are it will work just fine.

Got a new system using Vista a few weeks ago - my old PC with Windows 98 just wasn't chugging along as well as it used to, and after 10 years it was time for an update. Got a new printer with the new PC, a printer/scanner/copier, but my old one (several years old, at least 5 or 6, probably older) is a printer/scanner/copier/fax, and I use the fax quite a bit. When I installed it, I just left the brand new printer in the box, plugged the old one in, and Vista did all the rest - it's been working just fine ever since.

[Amianthus]

Got a new system using Vista a few weeks ago - my old PC with Windows 98 just wasn't chugging along as well as it used to, and after 10 years it was time for an update. Got a new printer with the new PC, a printer/scanner/copier, but my old one (several years old, at least 5 or 6, probably older) is a printer/scanner/copier/fax, and I use the fax quite a bit. When I installed it, I just left the brand new printer in the box, plugged the old one in, and Vista did all the rest - it's been working just fine ever since.

What kind of printer is the new one, and how much would you sell it for?

[hnumpah]

HP Deskjet F4280. I'm in the process of cleaning up the old Win98 computer, giving it a new hard drive, maybe a new flat screen monitor, etc, and setting it up in another room, and I'll probably use the new printer there. Thought about just reformatting the hard drive, 'cause my old ball and, um, loving wife has downloaded so much junk on it, but the old drive is getting a bit noisy, and not the good kind of noise, so I figure I'll just give 'er a new one, maybe with more capacity, and use it to keep our budget and other personal stuff on.