Why can't Windows 10 install a simple HP LaserJet 2100m printer driver?

"s|b" wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 22:11:51 -0000 (UTC), Danny D. wrote:

Where on earth is the HP laserjet 2100m (model c4172a) printer driver for
64bit Windows 10?

Why can't you ask this in alt.comp.os.windows-10?

--
s|b
It isn't an OS problem, it is a printer driver problem.
Tony

On 22.08.16 18:40, Danny D. wrote:
On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 08:23:21 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Hewlett Packard. OS makers are not responsible for drivers.

That makes sense.
But then why didn't HP have the driver on their web site?
And, why didn't Windows just *find* the driver in the first place?

Because that wont sell any new printers.

On 8/21/2016 10:06 PM, Danny D. wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 21:52:41 -0500, Paul in Houston TX wrote:

Current wait time is about 8 hours.
There is a temporary patch for that but I forgot the KB#.

Thanks. It finally worked!

Woo hoo!

- You've successfully added HP LaserJet 2100 Series PCL5
[Print a test page]

Woo hoo! I knew you guys wouldn't let me down!
- Windows Printer Test Page
- You have correctly installed your HP LaserJet 2100 Series PCL5 on NAME
- (lots of stuff)
- Print Processor = hpzpplhn
- OS Environment = Windows x64
- Driver Name = HP LaserJet 2100 Series PCL 5
- Driver Type = Type 3 - User Mode
- Driver Version = 6.1.7233.0

Thank you all for your expert help!!!!!!!!
You guys ARE the Usenet!

Glad your printer is working for you at last.

I too run rather old machines from HP and have seen the update printer
list keep mine working from W7 to W10.

Presently running an old Laserjet HP4100 with approximately 10000 pages
between cartridge replacements and an old DeskJet 952c. Both were
inherited from my old office when they shut our division down but they
just keep on running as they were models made for office use.

FredW wrote:
On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:30:34 -0500, Tony lizandtony at orcon dot net
dot nz wrote:
"s|b" wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 22:11:51 -0000 (UTC), Danny D. wrote:

Where on earth is the HP laserjet 2100m (model c4172a) printer driver for
64bit Windows 10?

Why can't you ask this in alt.comp.os.windows-10?


It isn't an OS problem, it is a printer driver problem.


Who are you trying to fool?
It is a printer driver problem for a specific OS.
Not a problem in Windows 7.

--
Fred W. (NLD)
I never try to fool people. Printer drivers for specific printers are and have
for decades been provided by the printer manufacturer. I you think about it you
must come to that realisation - how the hell could any OS provider know how to
interface with hundreds of different printers?
Tony

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 10:59:36 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

A driver is for a combination of a particular printer and a particular
version of Windows. For a Windows version that comes out after the
printer did, the printer can not come with a driver for it.

Except, in this case, somehow, Windows 10 x64 had a driver but only when
temporarily updated.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:37:05 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

If you mean "Why isn't there more standardisation among printer
drivers?", I agree, with your sentiment.

I guess that's what I meant.
I mean, what does a printer do anyway?

Sure, their are gee-whiz things that printers can do, but, c'mon ...
fundamentally, they all do the same thing.

Each printer model has tweaks
and quirks, and so the generic drivers have to be tweaked and quirked,
too. If printers were smarter, the only software you'd have to install
would be the printer control panel.

This is an interesting point.

I can plug in any telephone to my telephone outlet, and it will work.
I can plug in any power supply to my electrical mains and it will work.
I can plug in any router in my house - and it will work with everything.

Why can't printers be the same?

They all do the same thing.
Sure, one can define a superset of "features", but 'cmon.
All printers do the same thing.

The OS would send your instructions
along with the file to be printed, and the printer would do the rest.

This seems to me to be a viable direction.
Just like I can format a USB stick on almost any device and it will most
likely work on any other device that accepts that format, the printer
should simply accept generic instructions from the computer OS.

How hard can it be to develop a generic printer language anyway?
It doesn't have to handle everything. Just many things.

However, there's a lot of "intellectual property" involved, which tends
to get in the way of sensible co-operation on basic standards.

I have had so many HP printers that I realize that 90% of what HP does is
to prevent people from using non-HP equipment. Even so, I have been filling
my own ink (and trying to reset arbitrary expiry dates) for years and
refilling my own toner for (fewer) years.

So, the fact there are so many proprietary printer drivers may very well be
simply that this is how the printer manufacturers want it to be.

I've learned (mostly from calling cable and cellular companies for pricing
plans) that when something so simple is so complex - then it's complex on
purpose. The Marketing guys *want* it to be complex.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:29:43 -0500, Tony wrote:

Just saw this. I don't use PCL6 because of some problems it used to have (years
ago and I can't remember). Try PCL5, I doubt you will need PostScript.
Tony

Thanks. The PCL5 driver worked.

Why do they even have the other drivers?

What's the *practical* difference?

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:15:52 -0500, Tony wrote:

The following drivers are available on Win10 64 bit
CL5, PCL6 and PS for the LJ2100.
Microsoft are not and never have been responsible for manufacturer specific
printer drivers.
Go to add new printer
Click the printer I want isn't listed
Click add a local printer or network printer with manual settings
Select use existing or create new port as required
Click on Windows Update and wait (it will take a few minutes0.
Look under HP and voila!
The above is from memory so the words may be different.
Tony

Thank you for that summary.
That process is exactly what worked.
All other attempts failed, to wit:

1. It's bad enough that Windows 10, using the *normal* process for
installing a printer (which we've all used for decades on Windows), failed
miserably to install the printer driver for one of the most common printers
on the planet.

2. It's even worse that HP support failed just as miserably, using the
normal process (which we've all used for decades with HP printers) for
downloading a printer driver to a basic and very common laserjet printer.

3. The good news is that most likely HP drivers write themselves, in so
much as a printer driver is no big deal in terms of porting (and testing &
supplying & maintaining) from Windows 7 to Windows 10 - simply because HP
almost certainly has automated processes for such trivially easy ports such
as these are.

4. Therefore, the better news is that HP already (secretly, as it were)
supplied the HP LaserJet 2100m printer driver to Microsoft, such that the
"secret temporary" update process worked to install the correct printer
driver.

In the end, who knew that there was a secret temporary "Windows 10 update"
that is entirely separate and outside the "regular" Windows 10 update?

I certainly did not know this temporary update existed.
But thanks to you (plural) on the Usenet, I do now.

Thanks!

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:16:39 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

I'm sorry, I should have been more explicit. Yes, my comment is
"categorically wrong" as applied to all drivers, but it does apply to
printer drivers. Drivers for printers and other peripherals are the
responsibility of the manufacturers, who of course want their drivers
easily accessible/usable. They supply current drivers to the OS makers,
but the most common advice a driver problem is "get it from the
peripheral maker".

I understand your point that HP should "supply" me the driver - but I
disagree with your concept that I need to go to *all* my peripheral makers
in order to get their drivers.

We all know it used to be almost 100% that way (back before Windows 95 for
example, and for Linux up until only a handful of years ago).

But nowadays, for both Windows and Linux, the drivers are "just there".

I still remember the first time in my life that I booted to an OS that
*everything* just worked (it was Knoppix at the time). I was shocked.

The OS found the drivers for all the peripherals.
That's how an OS should be (IMHO).

The context of this thread is a driver for an
obsolete printer.

I think it's funny that you call the printer "obsolete" (noun) because on
day 1 it printed text and images to paper - and it *still* prints text and
images to paper and - even more importantly - a brand new printer would do
the exact same thing!

So, "I" don't consider it any more obsolete than you consider your right
hand to be obsolete. Your forebearers in the stone age had a hand that did
the exact same thing that your hand does today.

Is your hand obsolete?

Note: I realize you were speaking from a MARKETING perspective - in which
case to HP, they would love to obsolete (verb) my printer.

But my point is that I didn't even realize that printing text and images to
paper was "obsolete" technology - until now.

I don't think MS is responsible for supplying that,
and it's a marketing decision for HP whether to update it or not. OP's
report of success implies that it was updated, but it wasn't in W10
collection of current drivers.

I'm actually no longer livid at Microsoft for making installing one of the
most common printers on the planet (an HP laserjet) difficult.

I guess I should have realized there are *two* very different Windows
updates.
1. The "real" windows update (which is automatic)
2. The "temporary" windows update (which I had to press a button to get)

I'm not even mad at HP at this point - because HP is a MARKETING machine,
from start to finish. HP sells *ink* (not printers!). Just as Kodak sold
chemicals, HP sells colored water. They make almost all their money on
their colored water - so that's why they do what they do.

NOTE: I swore off HP injets a few years ago - for that very reason - but HP
will be hugely successful selling colored water until and unless *everyone*
comes to the same conclusion that I did (which is not likely to happen).

your comments on drivers needed for minimal functionality, I quite
agree, but they weren't the ones I had in mind, as they are outside the
context of this thread.

His argument was lucid that you want a basic functional OS, where the
"update" handles the rest.

I just didn't know there were to types of updates:
a. The normal update
b. The special update

And as always, Linux is whole 'nother universe. :-)

In actuality, the last time I installed the driver for Linux (which is a
different process, involving CUPS, as I recall), it was a breeze. In fact,
it was *far easier* to install that very same printer on Linux (Ubuntu)
than on Windows 10.

That's a sobering thought, but in the end, it was only hard to install the
printer driver on Windows 10 because the method used was unknown to me
(even though I had installed many printers on Windows over the years).

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:16:53 -0400, Paul wrote:

Categorically *wrong*. What good is an OS that you
cannot install ?

This is a fair question.

Sufficient drivers are on the OS installer disc,
to produce a minimally operational computer.

This is a fair observation.

Between
the hardware makers and the OS makers, they contrive
to stick with standards where possible.

Fair also.

But nothing
prevents a hardware maker from doing their own thing,
and being left behind.

I posit that a printer is nothing special in terms of driver need.
Therefore I present the suggestion that the only reason there are a billion
drivers for printers is because the printer manufacturer *wants* it that
way.

Why?
I'm not quite sure why - but my hypothesis is that it serves their
marketing purposes more so than any consumer benefit.

1) AHCI or IDE or RAID driver.
(MSAHCI, MSIDE, IASTORV, STORPORT, etc)
Prevents "Inaccessible Boot Volume".

Makes sense.

2) VESA video driver (a.k.a Microsoft Basic Display Adapter).
Those are examples of minimums for the usage of humans.

As an owner of those dastardly Nvidia drivers where I have to shim the
kernel every time I change it on Linux - simply because Nvidia drivers have
to be shimmed as a binary into a binary (which is a miserable process for
the non technical person such as I am), I agree with providing a basic
video driver (e.g., nouveau) and to heck with the proprietary drivers.

All displays do the same thing - just as all printers do the same thing.

Having a NIC driver is nice, and due to the small size
of NDIS drivers, they can pour a ton of those on the
disc as well.

All wifi cards do the same thing - just as all printers do the same thing.
There's no need for proprietary NIC drivers, IMHO.

If you have a working NIC, you can then
download optional drivers.

I agree with your concept, which is that a 'minimal' necessary system keeps
the download ISO small (which, overall, is a good thing).

Standard "Class" drivers are also included. By licensing,
Microsoft removed the right of manufacturers to include
things like USB2 or USB3 drivers. Those drivers are now
on the installer disc.

USB drivers are great in that they seem to be universal - which is a good
thing.

An HP printer is a third-party device, separate from
the computer, and optional in every sense of the word.
Obtaining a driver, can happen at your leisure. Because
now, you've bootstrapped yourself far enough to surf
the web.

You do make a convincing point.

The worst part of all drivers, is the state of documentation.
And not knowing what is available (Microsoft Universal
Printer Driver), or where to get it.

Aha! I didn't know about the MS Universal Printer Driver!
Does it work?
Would it work for my HP 2100m LaserJet?

Or in the case of
dot-matrix printer support, finding out that there
are actually a form of Class drivers right in the OS
for those too (Epson or IBM mode, with names that
make no sense). Only a rocket scientist gets their
ten year old dot-matrix running again. The support is
there, but it's almost impossible to figure out.

That's kind of what happened here.
I couldn't get my printer up and running on Windows 10 on my own, even
though I must have installed a score of printers in the past score of
years.

I had to ask you for help.
Luckily, people like you (plural you) exist!
Thanks for being part of the Usenet!

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 01:11:51 +0200, Sjouke Burry wrote:

That makes sense.
But then why didn't HP have the driver on their web site?
And, why didn't Windows just *find* the driver in the first place?

Because that wont sell any new printers.

This is probably the main reason that HP didn't have the driver on their
web site.

I doubt they aimed specifically at the HP LJ 2100m, but probably they have
an "age" policy and a "deal" with Microsoft (I'm guessing, I admit).

Perhaps they made the MARKETING decision to retire older printers, and, by
doing so, they implemented two clauses:

1. They create the drivers (the drivers almost certainly create themselves,
in that HP certainly has automated porting & testing processes).

2. But they only give the drivers to Microsoft.

Notice whom I was angry with in the first place?
It was Microsoft!

Microsoft, it seemed to me, should have *found* the right driver.
That Microsoft (initially) didn't find the right driver, made me mad that
Redmond had learned nothing in the interim from Windows 2.x to Windows 10.

Only later did my ire turn toward HP, because I *expect* HP to deliver the
driver (which is no big deal for HP to create & test as it is created and
tested the day they created and tested all Windows 10 drivers).

So, the *only* entity whose purpose is served by NOT making the driver
readily available - is HP.

Nobody else benefits from HP making the driver hard to find.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:05:35 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

I missed the early part of this thread, so I don't know what printer
you are talking about. But writing a driver for a new version of
Windows takes time and money. HP, like all manufacturers, does so only
if the printer is not very old and they are still selling it in
sufficient quantities. It does not pay for them to invest the time and
money to write drivers for products that are obsolescent.

I understand what you said, but I also disagree, from a practical
standpoint.

Sure, it takes time to write a driver - but how much time?

I could argue that it takes almost zero resources to write, manage, and
test and maintain the driver, in and of itself.

That's because it's all lumped in with thousands upon thousands of others.

Consider that HP has the source code to *all* its drivers.
And consider that HP is an expert in Windows 10 anyway.
And consider that HP probably has "porting" programs to port a driver from
Windows 7 to Windows 10 anyway.
And, consider that potentially all HP printers do basically the exact same
thing (they just make them different on purpose - but HP knows what they
artificially made different).
(and consider a few more efficiencies that a printer company has)

Given all the efficiencies that a printer company has, where the only
inefficiencies are those that HP artificially created in the first place, I
would wager that it takes absolutely nothing, in terms of calculable
resources, in and of itself, for them to port/test yet another driver from
Windows 7 (or 8) to Windows 10 for their own equipment.

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 09:16:12 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Additional instructions in PCL6. Because printers do more and more.

Maybe I'm back in the stone ages, but, for me, a printer does two things:

a. Prints images and text
b. To paper

What *else* do I need a printer to do?

(NOTE: OK. It scans also.)

Danny D. laid this down on his screen :
On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 09:16:12 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Additional instructions in PCL6. Because printers do more and more.

Maybe I'm back in the stone ages, but, for me, a printer does two things:

a. Prints images and text
b. To paper

What *else* do I need a printer to do?

(NOTE: OK. It scans also.)

Using your logic, a horse with carriage and a car both get you from
point A to point B, why would they need to be fuelled, operated and
maintained differently?

Speaking of horses, you have beaten this one to death. There are many
different printers with a staggering variety of features, capabilities
and technological differences. Capitalism, freedom and liberty afford
us numerous choices, many of which might produce the same result, but
fortunately, many differ in their approach. This is also known as
technological evolution or innovation.

If you cannot keep up with the innovations, you might consider
reverting to pencil and paper.

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:30 -0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 09:16:12 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Additional instructions in PCL6. Because printers do more and more.

Maybe I'm back in the stone ages, but, for me, a printer does two things:

a. Prints images and text
b. To paper

What *else* do I need a printer to do?

(NOTE: OK. It scans also.)


A printer does *not* scan. A device that both prints and scan is
usually called an all-in-one printer or a multifunction printer, but
as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't be called a "printer" at all;
that's like calling a steak and lobster dinner a steak dinner.

And further, as far as I'm concerned, those multifunction devices
should be avoided. If either one fails, you lose both and have to
replace devices; I'd much rather have separate devices so I only have
to replace one if it fails.