HP OfficeJet 7x00 Vista drivers are crap

[Andrew Rossmann]

What a load of crap drivers HP made available for the OfficeJet 7x00
series (I have an OfficeJet 7310). There is an 'official' Vista driver
on the website, but it has several MAJOR bugs.

My new home computer is Vista, but the printer is also used with a
'work' computer running Windows 2000. My old home computer also ran
Windows 2000.

1: The duplexer is disabled by default. You have to go into printer
properties (not printing preferences) to enable it. (From what I've
read, the driver that comes with Vista doesn't support it at all?)

2: You quickly find out why it's disabled by default. It doesn't work
properly!! No matter what settings you try, it will only duplex top-
bottom (flip up), not left-right (book). [There is a Microsoft contact
who can give an updated file that fixes this, but it still has all the
other bugs.)

3: Inconsistent top/bottom margins. It appears to add an extra 1/2" each
of top and bottom, squishing the printing.

4: Doesn't fully print. I tried printing a document from Excel, and it
partially cut off the bottom line on the first, third, fifth, etc...
pages.

You can try my test documents from here:
http://home.att.net/~andyross/Schaumburg_Cable_Channels.zip

Some googling did find others with the same issues. Some said to use
other drivers. I tried the Vista-built-in Deskjet 6980 driver (it uses
the same cartridges). The first printing seemed good, and I had the
correct margins, but the color printing was much lighter than the other
drivers. On a second print, the margins changed! So far, I've had the
best luck with the DeskJet 990 driver, but it's VERY limitd in what it
can do. It's Draft mode is more like FastNormal with the official
drivers.

So, has anyone else found a better Vista driver that works with the 7x00
series?

How about a nice multifunction (print/scan/copy, built-in duplex, built-
in networking) that properly supports both Vista (32-bit) and Win2K?

 

[Eric Hill]

Vista is crap. linux rocks (and it has printer drivers by default).

 

[Bob Headrick]

What a load of crap drivers HP made available for the OfficeJet 7x00
series (I have an OfficeJet 7310). There is an 'official' Vista driver
on the website, but it has several MAJOR bugs. [snip]
1: The duplexer is disabled by default. You have to go into printer
properties (not printing preferences) to enable it. (From what I've
read, the driver that comes with Vista doesn't support it at all?)

The Officejet 7310 did not come standard with a duplexer as I recall. It is
easy enough to enable it (only required once).

2: You quickly find out why it's disabled by default. It doesn't work
properly!! No matter what settings you try, it will only duplex top-
bottom (flip up), not left-right (book). [There is a Microsoft contact
who can give an updated file that fixes this, but it still has all the
other bugs.)

If you need the patch let me know, I will email it to you.

3: Inconsistent top/bottom margins. It appears to add an extra 1/2" each
of top and bottom, squishing the printing.

Actually it has a minimum margin of 0.46" at the bottom of the page, which
corresponds to the top of the back side when duplexing. This is no
different than the previous behavior, the 7310/7410 always had this margin.

4: Doesn't fully print. I tried printing a document from Excel, and it
partially cut off the bottom line on the first, third, fifth, etc...
pages.

The first page has an insufficient margin at the bottom (minimum margin is
0.46"). The rest of the pages printed fine.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

The Officejet 7310 did not come standard with a duplexer as I recall. It is
easy enough to enable it (only required once).

Mine certainly came with the duplexer, which is black. I still have the
brown duplexer from my DJ970, which I used on an Office 2410 I used to
have.

Actually it has a minimum margin of 0.46" at the bottom of the page, which
corresponds to the top of the back side when duplexing. This is no
different than the previous behavior, the 7310/7410 always had this margin.


The first page has an insufficient margin at the bottom (minimum margin is
0.46"). The rest of the pages printed fine.

When I print the sample Word document I posted, the Vista OfficeJet
driver ADDS an extra half-inch, giving me a 1" margin. Using the DJ990
driver, or the Win2K computer, it prints as before with a 1/2" margin.

 

[Bob Headrick]

When I print the sample Word document I posted, the Vista OfficeJet
driver ADDS an extra half-inch, giving me a 1" margin. Using the DJ990
driver, or the Win2K computer, it prints as before with a 1/2" margin.

Have you obtained the duplex fix and installed it? If not, please do that.
The Word file printed fine here.

- Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

Have you obtained the duplex fix and installed it? If not, please do that.
The Word file printed fine here.

I have the fix and the duplexer works. But, there is still a margin
issue. I just tried printing again, and there is 1" between the top of
the page and the top of the title letters. There should only be 1/2".

 

[Ivor Jones]

"Andrew Rossmann" <andysnewsreply@no_junk.comcast.net>
wrote in message
: : What a load of crap drivers HP made available for the
: : OfficeJet 7x00 series (I have an OfficeJet 7310). There
: : is an 'official' Vista driver on the website, but it
: : has several MAJOR bugs.


Vista is crap and has even more major bugs.

Do yourself a favour, get rid of it and install XP (preferably the Pro
version).


Ivor

 

[Bob Headrick]

I have been experiencing the same problems you describe for about a
month now after updating my pc to Vista. The HP OfficeJet 7310 does not
work with Vista. I cannot scan, the duplex printing is flipping all the
pages incorrectly

Is there really a patch available and if so could someone email it to
me?

I can send you a patch but will need a better email address than
(e-mail address removed).

Send me a private email and I will send the patch that corrects the "reverse
side upside down" problem.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging