eGaTS
05-18-2007, 02:39 PM
Ok, so I have an HP Deskjet D4160 connected to an XP Home box using USB. I installed the current Basic Drivers for it from the official HP site. Everything installed correctly, and the device prints fine, except that it's slightly misaligned.
Ok, no biggie--I can't expect perfect alignment...well, ever. So I fire up Printing Preferences, go to the Features tab and click the Printer Services button. So I get the error message "Unable to perform the operation".
Already guessing at the cause, but not wanting to believe it, I fire up HP support chat and they tell me I have to install the "full featured" bloatware version of their software to access the alignment utility. Ugh.
I mean come on. 30MB Basic Driver versus 250MB "Full Featured" Driver? Seriously. My printer is just a printer. I think even 30MB is too big to be just a basic driver. I don't want a million services and extra processes running in the background all the time. Actually I'd rather not have any at all. XP's spoolsv.exe should be able to do the job all by itself (no pun intended). I print something maybe once a week--if that...and I don't want any of their crappy bundled graphics software either.
So what's the solution here? The way I see it there are a few questions I want to pose to anyone who has read everything I just said:
1. Is there any way to extract the Alignment/Printer Services module from the 250MB package and get it to work with my Basic Driver? I mean, it seems like the button click event tries to call it and gets no answer. Maybe some combination of dll's?
2. Are there third-party printer alignment utilities out there somewhere? I haven't been able to dig up any, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.
3. Is there a third-party driver for HP's that gives basic printing functionality and printer services?
4. Some other solution? I'm sure every geek out there is unhappy with HP bloatware and has already been down this road. Don't suggest that I trash the printer or change operating systems (it's not my box). Other than that I'm all ears.
~eGaTS
Ok, no biggie--I can't expect perfect alignment...well, ever. So I fire up Printing Preferences, go to the Features tab and click the Printer Services button. So I get the error message "Unable to perform the operation".
Already guessing at the cause, but not wanting to believe it, I fire up HP support chat and they tell me I have to install the "full featured" bloatware version of their software to access the alignment utility. Ugh.
I mean come on. 30MB Basic Driver versus 250MB "Full Featured" Driver? Seriously. My printer is just a printer. I think even 30MB is too big to be just a basic driver. I don't want a million services and extra processes running in the background all the time. Actually I'd rather not have any at all. XP's spoolsv.exe should be able to do the job all by itself (no pun intended). I print something maybe once a week--if that...and I don't want any of their crappy bundled graphics software either.
So what's the solution here? The way I see it there are a few questions I want to pose to anyone who has read everything I just said:
1. Is there any way to extract the Alignment/Printer Services module from the 250MB package and get it to work with my Basic Driver? I mean, it seems like the button click event tries to call it and gets no answer. Maybe some combination of dll's?
2. Are there third-party printer alignment utilities out there somewhere? I haven't been able to dig up any, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.
3. Is there a third-party driver for HP's that gives basic printing functionality and printer services?
4. Some other solution? I'm sure every geek out there is unhappy with HP bloatware and has already been down this road. Don't suggest that I trash the printer or change operating systems (it's not my box). Other than that I'm all ears.
~eGaTS