HP laserjet 4/4+ Driver query

[Jambers]

Can someone point me in the direction of, in their opinion, the best
driver for the above printer(s). I have to locate one for my
girlfriend's dad, then post it to him, so I am unable to
'suck-it-and-see' by testing various drivers (he lives 400 miles
away). It will be used for printing basic docs, generally text only,
but maybe the odd graphic, don't know if that makes any odds, but
there you go anyway.
TIA

 

[Bob Eager]

Can someone point me in the direction of, in their opinion, the best
driver for the above printer(s). I have to locate one for my
girlfriend's dad, then post it to him, so I am unable to
'suck-it-and-see' by testing various drivers (he lives 400 miles
away). It will be used for printing basic docs, generally text only,
but maybe the odd graphic, don't know if that makes any odds, but
there you go anyway.
TIA

DOS? Windows 3.x? NT? Win 2000? XP? OS/2 1.x? OS/2 Warp? Macintosh?
AmigaDOS? Linux? FreeBSD? Solaris?

More information needed...

 

[jbuch]

Can someone point me in the direction of, in their opinion, the best
driver for the above printer(s). I have to locate one for my
girlfriend's dad, then post it to him, so I am unable to
'suck-it-and-see' by testing various drivers (he lives 400 miles
away). It will be used for printing basic docs, generally text only,
but maybe the odd graphic, don't know if that makes any odds, but
there you go anyway.
TIA

You can find the latest drivers at the HP website.

http://www.hp.com/

It will take you some work to find the driver, but I was there looking
for exactly the same driver a few weeks ago, and managed to find it. It
took several minutes of searching.

Turns out I didn't need it as the driver was fine and the problem was
sonething else. I can't find the driver file I downloaded from hp, so I
can't give you the name.


As had been said elsewhere, you probably should know (and say) the
operating system you need the driver for. The HP website will ask you to
specify the operating system. You could download them all and try them,
but it is better to know the operating system in the beginning.

Jim



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[Jambers]

damn, damn, damn, sorry about that could kick myself sometimes!

2 OS's involved win2k and win98se

Yeah, Jim, I have found what appears to be the driver on HP site, but
it doesn't categorically state it, it's not all that helpful the hp
site. And seeing as how I am not in a position to test it, I wouldn't
like to download it, burn it, post it, then spend 2 hours on the phone
to my gf's old man, and find out it was a big waste of time!

I mean, this one might work, but I can't test it
<http://www.printer-drivers.com/drivers/79/79112.htm>

All I need is someone to post a link saying, this is the one I use on
my win98 or win2k system, and it works great, crisp prints every time.
<http://www.linktohpdriverhere.com>
Or, someone can email me their up to date driver? Need one for win98
and for win2k.
TIA

 

[Bob Eager]

damn, damn, damn, sorry about that could kick myself sometimes!

2 OS's involved win2k and win98se

In that case, the driver is shipped with the system. As long as you have
the original CD, or it's all installed on the hard disk, the driver can
just be selected from the 'driver database'. The stock Win98se driver
works fine with the LJ4. No need to complicate matters when you're not
near the machine.

Select 'Create new printer' or whatever it is (I don't use Windows 99%
of the time so I don't have a system here to check the wording) and
select 'HP' on the left and 'LJ4' or whatever on the right. Be careful
not to select the PS varaiant unless you know the printer is fitted with
a PostCript SIMM. Press the buttons as requested and that's it. Done.

All I need is someone to post a link saying, this is the one I use on
my win98 or win2k system, and it works great, crisp prints every time.

The one shipped with Win98se and Win2K, in my case!

 

[Jambers]

The one shipped with Win98se and Win2K, in my case!

Cheers bob, but I was hoping for a more upto date driver, reckon the
drivers on the win98 disk will be pre 1998. But if you reckon that
one works grand, then I'll just use it.

If the printer *is* fitted with a Post Script SIMM, then is it better
to use a driver that will utilise it? And also, will it still work
with the standard driver?

 

[Jambers]

OK, I reckon I've found 4 drivers. 2 PS for win98 & win2k and 2 not
PS. Did a 'dummy' install on my win2k machine and the printer was
listed each time, so reckon I've got it covered. Drivers appear to be
dated 2000, but may be say something different after proper
installation in driver properites.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Bob Eager]

Cheers bob, but I was hoping for a more upto date driver, reckon the
drivers on the win98 disk will be pre 1998. But if you reckon that
one works grand, then I'll just use it.

Given that they stopped making the printer before Win98se came out, I
would doubt that anything was changed. I have never experienced any
bugs, and I have a number of LJ4/LJ4+ in various places.

If the printer *is* fitted with a Post Script SIMM, then is it better
to use a driver that will utilise it? And also, will it still work
with the standard driver?

Yes and yes. PostScript allows options that may not be available with
the standard driver - at least, that's the case on my non-Windows
systems. For example, n-up printing is really simple.

 

[Jambers]

Cheers Bob

 

[Gregg E.]

You'll probably find that the Windows 2000 driver has fewer features
than the 98SE driver. Many of the drivers in 2000/XP for older
printers don't support error diffusion for graphics printing.

If you have PostScript, use it! Many printers print PostScript
jobs a bit faster, plus you usually get features like n-up printing
to put multiple pages on one or spanning a page over multiple
pages as a poster. N-up and poster printing are a couple of other
options that have been stripped from many printer drivers provided
with later versions of Windows.

I have an Epson 1500 laser that I got for $9 at a thrift shop for
my 2000 box but gave it to the folks for their 98SE box because the
2000 driver was junk. No error diffusion and some other settings
available with the 98SE driver were missing. While the drivers
say they're from Microsoft, it's actually HP that writes them and
it looks like they've a long term plan to force their long lived
older products out of use by creating progressively worse drivers
for each new version of Windows.

Any bets that the next Windows, codemaned "Longhorn", won't support
any HP LaserJet older than the 6 series? (If it even supports those!)