How to get HP Printers working on Vista

[Birk Binnard]

The following steps are what I discovered over about a 4 day period. My
system is Vista Home Premium and I have a LaserJet 2500 color printer.
I was previously running XP Home SP2 and I figured it would be easy to
move the LJ2500 over to my new Vista machine and still use the XP system
as a backup.

Needless to say moving the printer was the hardest part of migrating
from XP to Vista. I'll just list the steps needed to get the printer to
work.

1. Go to the HP website and download/install the Vista PCL6 driver. Here
is the link for that:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...iesId=81954&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=2093

2. Using the Control Panel/1Printer/Add Printer function, add your
printer. When you do this use the top option which says something like
"Use this option only if you have a non-USB printer..."; use this option
even if your printer is actually using a USB connection. For the printer
port specify either USB (if that's what you are using) or LPTx (if using
a parallel port.)

3. This should get your printer to print OK, but there will be 2
problems: (1) if the printer is a color one (the 2500 is a color
printer), your printer will print only B/W, and (2) the HP Status
Monitor software will not be able to communicate with the printer
because it (the software) needs to use something called a DOT4
connection, not a USB connection.

4. You need to install the DOT4 port to get the HP Status Monitor to
work. You can install this from the CD that originally came with your
printer but you have to run the Setup program in XP Compatibility mode.
To do this browse to the Setup.exe program on the CD, right click on
it, Select Options/Compatibility and specify Run in compatibility more
for Windows XP. This will let you install the printer (again); this
time use the DOT4 port that will be an option. However, it will have a
problem: it will be set to PCL5. This is not good.

5. You now have 2 printers installed. One is using PCL6 and a USB (or
parallel) port; the other is using PCL5 and the DOT4 port. Take a deep
breath and delete the PCL5/DOT4 printer. The go to the Properties/Ports
tab for the PCL6 printer and change the port to DOT4. This port type
was what you did Step 4 for; there is no place on the HP website where
you can download the DOT4 port driver.

6. Your printer should work OK and so should the HP Status Monitor. I
did a couple of reboots between several of these steps but I'm not sure
that's necessary.

Remember, the key is to get PCL6 and a DOT4 port in your printer's
configuration.

 

[Guest]

Dear Birk,

I have an Officejet D155xi which seems to be a pcl 3 printer, so I guess
that explains why I couldn't get your drivers to work!. However during the
installation it did find my printer already on a DOT4_1 port which I think is
wrong as it is on a usb port... when I printed a test page just a mess came
out! I also cant delete the DOT port? However scanning works...

is there a univeral pcl 3 printer available. i didn't think my printer was
that old.

Thanks for your idea though...
Martin

 

[Birk Binnard]

Wow - PCL3? That is old. Not sure what to suggest about that; just
finding a PCL3 Setup file will be difficult.

From what I can determine DOT4 is the correct port type for any HP
printer using a USB port. The reason seems to be that although the
printer itself will work when attached to a regular USB port, the HP
monitor/toolbox software needs DOT4 to communicate with the printer. The
printer itself should work fine on either type of port.

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

during the 
installation it did find my printer already on a DOT4_1 port which I think is 
wrong as it is on a usb port.

That happened to me under XP with my LJ2200d when I switched it over from
Parallel to USB.

It seems that DOT4 is a convention/extension to the port system and although the
explanations I see refer to multi-function devices like printer/scanners as I
say it came up for me with a simple laser printer.