All in One printer with small drivers

Hi,

I'm looking for a new printer.

I'd prefer an all-in-one.
It needs to be on the cheaper side, and shared by a few machines.

I've recently installed a number of printers and been unpleasantly
surprised by the huge amount of software that needs to be installed
these days. Installing the drivers on several machines is going to take
all day ! Also the latest HP machines seem to use an enormous amount of
CPU resources :-(

Can anyone recommend a cheapish all-in-one that doesn't need GB's of
software installed, and a 4GHz machine to run the software ?

Performance/quality isn't really an issue - its to replace an ageing HP
deskjet 720C, so anything will be a huge improvement.

Cheers
JohnT

John Taylor wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for a new printer.
>
> I'd prefer an all-in-one.
> It needs to be on the cheaper side, and shared by a few machines.
>
> I've recently installed a number of printers and been unpleasantly
> surprised by the huge amount of software that needs to be installed
> these days. Installing the drivers on several machines is going to take
> all day ! Also the latest HP machines seem to use an enormous amount of
> CPU resources :-(
>
> Can anyone recommend a cheapish all-in-one that doesn't need GB's of
> software installed, and a 4GHz machine to run the software ?
>
> Performance/quality isn't really an issue - its to replace an ageing HP
> deskjet 720C, so anything will be a huge improvement.
>
> Cheers
> JohnT

When installing printer software, are you installing just the drivers
needed to print, or the extra software that (usually) comes along with it?

M.H. wrote:
> John Taylor wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm looking for a new printer.
>>
>> I'd prefer an all-in-one.
>> It needs to be on the cheaper side, and shared by a few machines.
>>
>> I've recently installed a number of printers and been unpleasantly
>> surprised by the huge amount of software that needs to be installed
>> these days. Installing the drivers on several machines is going to take
>> all day ! Also the latest HP machines seem to use an enormous amount of
>> CPU resources :-(
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a cheapish all-in-one that doesn't need GB's of
>> software installed, and a 4GHz machine to run the software ?
>>
>> Performance/quality isn't really an issue - its to replace an ageing HP
>> deskjet 720C, so anything will be a huge improvement.
>>
>> Cheers
>> JohnT
>
> When installing printer software, are you installing just the drivers
> needed to print, or the extra software that (usually) comes along with it?

I don't think there is any choice - just an install button.

Unless you can download just the drivers from somewhere, but that wasn't
an option in the instructions.

Regards
JohnT

John Taylor wrote:
> M.H. wrote:
>> John Taylor wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm looking for a new printer.
>>>
>>> I'd prefer an all-in-one.
>>> It needs to be on the cheaper side, and shared by a few machines.
>>>
>>> I've recently installed a number of printers and been unpleasantly
>>> surprised by the huge amount of software that needs to be installed
>>> these days. Installing the drivers on several machines is going to take
>>> all day ! Also the latest HP machines seem to use an enormous amount of
>>> CPU resources :-(
>>>
>>> Can anyone recommend a cheapish all-in-one that doesn't need GB's of
>>> software installed, and a 4GHz machine to run the software ?
>>>
>>> Performance/quality isn't really an issue - its to replace an ageing HP
>>> deskjet 720C, so anything will be a huge improvement.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> JohnT
>>
>> When installing printer software, are you installing just the drivers
>> needed to print, or the extra software that (usually) comes along with
>> it?
>
> I don't think there is any choice - just an install button.
>
> Unless you can download just the drivers from somewhere, but that wasn't
> an option in the instructions.
>
> Regards
> JohnT
Try installing the printer from Windows, and pointing it to the install
CD. Should install just the drivers.

M.H. wrote:

> Try installing the printer from Windows, and pointing it to the install
> CD. Should install just the drivers.

I'm not keen to buy a printer, just to see if that will work.
Can anyone recommend one that definitely will work with that approach on
Win2K ?

John Taylor wrote:
> M.H. wrote:
>
>> Try installing the printer from Windows, and pointing it to the
>> install CD. Should install just the drivers.

Actually I usually find with hp printers that _doesn't_ work. With the cd,
you usually have to go through the installation program on the cd. Even if
you point it at the actual directory which seems to contain the (for
instance) W2k drivers, it doesn't recognise them
>
> I'm not keen to buy a printer, just to see if that will work.
> Can anyone recommend one that definitely will work with that approach
> on Win2K ?

With HP printers, there are usually driver only drivers on the hp site,
though these are usually quite big with an all in one, or may only support
printing for example. If it's a network printer, or connected via an
external jetdirect card then a simple way of scanning (for example) is to
http to it which usually has a test scan which you can save locally.