HP DeskJet 400 With Windows 98

[Elizabeth]

I got my HP DeskJet 400 when I had Windows 95. When I upgraded my
operating system a few years ago to Windows 98, I installed the same
software for the printer that I had used with Win95, and it worked
fine with Win98, too. The printer has been fine with Win98 for the
last few years.

I still use Win98 (new computer but same operating system). I recently
tried to upgrade my Norton Antivirus to their latest, Antivirus 2004.
The installation had problems, so I deleted that program. But now,
whenever I print something, although it does print, I get an error
message that there's been an illegal operation and the program will
close. That's in spite of deleting the corrupt Antivirus program.

I went to the HP Web site, hoping to find a solution, but it won't let
me connect to drivers or troubleshooting documents. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Beth

 

[Browser485]

Try reinstalling the printer driver you can dl one from the HP site. You
may have corrupted /deleted certain files that are needed by the pinter or
spooler to print. You should use a program such as Clean Sweep to monitor
program installations, then if you need to uninstall a program Clean Sweep
will uninstall it completely since most program uninstall routines do NOT
completely uninstall their respective programs.
I also have this printer and it serves me well as a general purpose printer.
Regards,

 

[Elizabeth]

I thought of reinstalling the printer driver. I still have the disk
that came with the printer and reinstalled that. Didn't help. So I
went to HP's Web site to download a driver specifically for Win98. I
know they have one because I've seen it before. But now I can't
connect to the download page. I tried all day yesterday and this
morning. I don't even know if this will fix it.

Yes, I agree about Cleansweep.

Thanks,
Beth

 

[Browser485]

Beth,
I reread your initial post and have come up with an educated guess as to
what may be happening. Since you can print correctly the problem most
likely lies with the Antivirus program. Windows may be trying to monitor
what is going to or comming from the Parallel port to check for viruses, but
since the anti-virus program files are not there it display an illegal
operation message. In such a case you would have to edit the registry to
delete the offending occurences of Norton anti-virus (which should have
been deleted in the unistall process). Contact Symantec support to guide
you through such a process as you may make your computer inoperable if you
don't know what you are doing. You may also try to install the anti-virus
program again and then uninstall it, hopefully it would uninstall properly
this time.
I believe the HP400 driver is the same for Win95 Win98 & WinMe.
Let me know how you make out.
JG

 

[Elizabeth]

Yes, I'm sure it has to do with that deleted antivirus program. But
that's all I knew. Your suggestion of what's going on sounds right. I
wouldn't dare reinstall Antivirus 2004, though. I installed it twice,
and both times it didn't install correctly. I still have the CD for
Antivirus 2002 and am thinking of reinstalling that. If the problem
with my printer is what you say it is, maybe that will fix it.

Beth