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captainsblogI know I've used that header before; I've used it far more often in icon form. But sheesh. The things it takes to get simple pieces of hardware to get along with each other.
About a year ago, my all-in-one printing unit finally shat its bed and needed to be replaced. I picked the closest thing HP had to my previous version, in hopes that it wouldn't require complete reconfiguration of my drivers and whatnots. Fat chance, that. Everything needed to be overwritten and the old stuff all cleaned out, but in the end it all worked pretty much the way the old one did.
Until two days ago, that is. I'd installed the latest edition of Turbo Tax to start getting my 2007 Returns of Doom under way (smile when you get that refund, cause it's us self-employed types who send the checks in to pay for it), and it piddled around for close to an hour first doing something with a nasty looking thing called Microsoft.NET Framework before actually turning itself on.
Later on, I tried sending a fax directly from my computer. The all-in-one has the usual glass and sheet-feeder methods to send additional documents, but for something like a letter, it's quicker to use the built-in fax driver to send the document. Or was, anyway. It refused to send the fax, once, twice, fee times a maybe, and said it was saving the attempts to the log file.
No problem. I clicked the "log" button, and,.... nothing. Nor could the fax software do anything beyond ask for the recipient's name and fax number. Rebooting didn't help. Troubleshooting the fax function proved that the fax could send faxes, but offered no clue about why it couldn't send them directly from the computer anymore.
I then pulled the Genius Move Of The Week. Remembering that sometimes driver files get corrupted, I went into control panel and deleted the fax driver from the set of printer options, expecting that as soon as I reconnected the printer through the USB port, it would plug-and-play me right back to where the duplicate drivers are stored.
Or not. Since the driver for the physical print function is still there, as far as Bill Gates and Carly Whatshername are concerned, I'm fine. I've tried HP online support, onboard support, reloading all files from the original installation disk and screaming out the window- all to no avail.
Oh, and of course ever since I deleted the driver which enables faxes to be printed from the log, the "log" button once again works fine.
It's not that big a deal. I maybe used this function once a week, and can end-around it simply by printing out the document and cover sheet and then faxing them manually. But damn- it shouldn't be that easy to delete a driver file if they're gonna make it that hard to recover it. I know, I could probably uninstall the entire package and re-run the install from scratch, but at the rate this has been going I don't wanna risk losing what printing capability I still do have.
About a year ago, my all-in-one printing unit finally shat its bed and needed to be replaced. I picked the closest thing HP had to my previous version, in hopes that it wouldn't require complete reconfiguration of my drivers and whatnots. Fat chance, that. Everything needed to be overwritten and the old stuff all cleaned out, but in the end it all worked pretty much the way the old one did.
Until two days ago, that is. I'd installed the latest edition of Turbo Tax to start getting my 2007 Returns of Doom under way (smile when you get that refund, cause it's us self-employed types who send the checks in to pay for it), and it piddled around for close to an hour first doing something with a nasty looking thing called Microsoft.NET Framework before actually turning itself on.
Later on, I tried sending a fax directly from my computer. The all-in-one has the usual glass and sheet-feeder methods to send additional documents, but for something like a letter, it's quicker to use the built-in fax driver to send the document. Or was, anyway. It refused to send the fax, once, twice, fee times a maybe, and said it was saving the attempts to the log file.
No problem. I clicked the "log" button, and,.... nothing. Nor could the fax software do anything beyond ask for the recipient's name and fax number. Rebooting didn't help. Troubleshooting the fax function proved that the fax could send faxes, but offered no clue about why it couldn't send them directly from the computer anymore.
I then pulled the Genius Move Of The Week. Remembering that sometimes driver files get corrupted, I went into control panel and deleted the fax driver from the set of printer options, expecting that as soon as I reconnected the printer through the USB port, it would plug-and-play me right back to where the duplicate drivers are stored.
Or not. Since the driver for the physical print function is still there, as far as Bill Gates and Carly Whatshername are concerned, I'm fine. I've tried HP online support, onboard support, reloading all files from the original installation disk and screaming out the window- all to no avail.
Oh, and of course ever since I deleted the driver which enables faxes to be printed from the log, the "log" button once again works fine.
It's not that big a deal. I maybe used this function once a week, and can end-around it simply by printing out the document and cover sheet and then faxing them manually. But damn- it shouldn't be that easy to delete a driver file if they're gonna make it that hard to recover it. I know, I could probably uninstall the entire package and re-run the install from scratch, but at the rate this has been going I don't wanna risk losing what printing capability I still do have.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 12:35 am (UTC)I hooked up my ancient CD-RW drive (ancient as in, like, circa 2000-2001: the one I had hooked up to my desktop with Windows ME). Of course, it will read things and rip things, but the laptop's software won't recognize it as a drive it can write to. So damned if I can't burn CDs. If I want to go to the trouble, I'll have to put things on my ipod and then transfer them to my roommate's computer. But since I wanted to burn the CD for her anyway...
This is just in Windows Media Player and iTunes. I haven't yet tried to burn a data disc. And of course, I don't have any installation disks from the CD burner lying around. It may have had one at one time, but it works fine as a plug-and-play drive, thankfully (otherwise I'd have no recourse but a new drive). If I ever have free time again, I might try to find some shareware that will help. :-/
You don't want my advice...
Date: 2008-01-12 03:12 am (UTC)I know, Ray. Don't say it. ;).
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 02:27 pm (UTC)