HP Photosmart 1218

[Brendan]

HP in their wisdom have decided NOT to provide a windows vista driver for
this excellent (if a few years old) printer. As a result of this, my upgrade
leaves me with a perfectly serviceable printer that is useless. HP suggest I
buy another of their printers (WTF!!!) - I guess they don't want my
over-priced ink purchases either. Has anyone else any idea of how to get
this printer to work in Vista?

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

A new printer would be faster and more ink efficient that your old printer,
but as you want to keep it, you could buy a really cheap, slow XP box and
network it, or a cheaper option still, buy a new printer..

 

[BigJim]

the point is that he shouldn/t have to buy a new printer, hp may have
drivers down the road.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Apparently, Vista has some kind of native support for older printers, and
the HP 1000 series is accredited in some way..

Hardware manufacturers have a history of dumping old stuff when a new OS
appears by way of not producing drivers.. having said that, new printers
offer better quality and faster output, while being way more economical with
ink delivery.. personally, I would get a new printer..

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

Have you tried using the HP XP driver for that machine?

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?
softwareitem=ps-12908-1&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=60362&os=228&lang=en

I find that VISTA is very tolerant of old stuff -- I'm running an HP
SJ5P scanner that is much older than your printer!

You may have to get guidance on how to deal with it if VISTA starts
shouting about driver certificates -- I've not run into that yet
myself.

Good luck.

PS Newegg the other day showed the lovely PS8250 for $75. It's worth
every penny of the $199 I paid for mine!

 

[Brendan]

Hi Mike,

This particular printer came equiped with automated duplex printing amongst
many other high end features and hasn't missed a beat since the day I bought
it. For me to replace this feature set means parting with at least $AUD600.
The Vista Ultimate Upgrade only cost $AUD500. And my Epson 3000 (an A2
printer) which is 11 years old is still supported in Vista. Your comment
about new printers using less ink is very debateable.

My biggest complaint with this Vista upgrade is that I was happily using
many older programs and pieces of hardware which simply won't work in
Vista. When I say older, in many cases this is only two or three years - all
of these programs and hardware were working absolutely perfectly in XP. My
bill to get my machine working again is now approaching several thousand
dollars. I seriously think I will have to downgrade to XP. Will MS give me a
refund for my Vista upgrade?????

One further point - I have been involved in OS upgrades since the early
80's, and this is the first time I have had to throw out perfectly
serviceable equipment - true I may have had some initial problems with some
things, but eventually they all worked. And the companies involved fell over
backwards to try and help. For HP to tell me that I need to buy a new
printer when I am paying them substantial amounts of money for ink and
consumables (which they are still happy to sell to me) is nothing short of
highway robbery. How much will it cost them to write a Vista driver - I'd
suggest about the cost of two HP45 and two HP78 ink cartridges.

Regards

Brendan Hillary

 

[Guest]

Hi Brendan,

I suggest you to try with Deskjet 990c printer In-os driver. This may enable
you to use the printer.

Regards,
Krishna -

 

[Brendan]

Hi Krishna,

Thanks for the tip but the deskjet drivers result in a smear across the page
when printed (not legible). I have some functionality back by using the
Photosmart 2570 drivers in Vista, but I only get rudimentery printing
abilities and can't use any of the advanced functions. I also need to turn
the printer off after every print job as it appears to hang otherwise.

Regards
Brendan
"Krishna Chaitanya. Yadavalli"

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Brendan

HP have only ever fallen over themselves trying to get people to buy new
stuff at every new OS introduction.. they have something of a history re
releasing drivers for some products very late in the hope that the user will
despair and get something newer..

Modern printers are way more ink efficient than they used to be, HP
particularly.. I gotten a customer to dump their old HP 500c printer and buy
a new 5150 after much persuasion.. they were pleased with the new printer..
clearer print and not as heavy on ink..

 

[Guest]

HP in their wisdom have decided NOT to provide a windows vista driver for
this excellent (if a few years old) printer. As a result of this, my upgrade
leaves me with a perfectly serviceable printer that is useless. HP suggest I
buy another of their printers (WTF!!!) - I guess they don't want my
over-priced ink purchases either. Has anyone else any idea of how to get
this printer to work in Vista?

 

[Guest]

Have you gotten your printer to work????

 

[Guest]

Hi Brendan,

Sorry for the late reply. Was busy with some other stuff. The deskjet 990c,
5560 and 5550 are the default printer drivers vailable. Even HP is
recommending the same for mean while. However you may also try with HP
photosmart 7400 this is a inbuilt driver. But I am not sure wether this will
help you in full functionality of printer like duplexing, two communications
etc..

but you can give a shot.

you can buzz me at (e-mail address removed)

regards,
krishna

 

[FrankG]

I guessed that the ’hp business inkjet 1200’ drivers available from
within Vista (32) might work and so far they’ve worked well enough for
my purposes. No hangs or gross misbehaviors anyway.

I only want a rough & ready printer function until my HP ink supply
is exhausted. I can live with single-sided prints, poor photo support,
and no card reader (which was awful anyway) until I waterfall the
printer to an XP relative.

I already have an Epson I bought for CD/DVD printing which I can use
for anything requiring sophistication.