HP eventually escalated my problem until I was working
directly with a guy over the phone, instead of e-mailing
back and forth. I'm glad I gave HP a temporary e-mail address,
because I have gotten three spam emailings via that temp address
and I have now disabled it.
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
# The initial install went fine. Here are the subsequent problems
# I had:
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything seems to work eventually, but certain items keep
getting auto-reinstalled- see below.
Each and *every* time a *new* image is transfered to the gallery
the following two popups appear:
popup window w/title: Creative Projects
window text contents:
- Please wait while windows configures
creative projects.
- gathering required information ..
popup window w/title:
Microsoft Data Access Components
window text contents:
- Extracting: {same series of file
names flash up each time}
This is very annoying, it takes about 30 sec or so for the two popups
to go away. Each time they appear they are apparently doing the the
same set of tasks as before. When scanning a new image this is not
so bad, but when loading images off a digital camera this may delay
the process by over 10 minutes.
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
# HP help and my own steps that did *not* fix problem
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
I was instructed to uninstall the software and reinstall.
This was a tedious 4 step process requiring that you run
(if I recall correctly) :
uninstall.bat 1
uninstall.bat 2
uninstall.bat 3
uninstall.bat 4
where uninstall.bat is below a utility dir somewhere on the
original CD. I suggest you explicitly provide the number
as shown above, otherwise you may not get the uninstall
level you want since they leave a tempfile on your system
and that can confuse uninstall.bat - trust me, I learned
the hard way.
I also tried upgrading the driver, by downloading a Jan 2004
version I found on their website. This of course required
the above 4 step uninstall, and the better part of another
Sunday morning.
HP told me to try loading
Microsoft security patch m04-003 ( enu_q832483_mdac_x86.exe )
This was no help.
# ====================================================================
# Run folder / Registry Trick that finally worked!
# ====================================================================
Everything that I did here was as the "administrator" user.
HP asked that I uninstall again. They hinted that a "level 1",
"level 2" uninstall would be sufficient, but I did all 4 steps.
I was instructed to follow:
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/hub_search/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=bps05697
I tried out the process above on a "crash and burn" PC running
w2k, and found the process touchy, I could not reliably re-name the
backup folder back to "Run". Microsoft seemed to auto create this folder
(albeit invisible) before I could do the rename.
Here's the solution I used: I in-effect NOP'd, or commented out
each item in the Run folder. Personally I feel my approach is
safer, as long as your careful. The registry folder I'm refering to is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
For example one of the REG_SZ items I have in this folder on my box
at home is named "AVG_CC" (anti-virus), and it contains the string:
D:\opt\Grisoft\AVG6\avgcc32.exe /STARTUP
I used regedit to prepend a simple "do nothing" command:
cmd /c rem D:\opt\Grisoft\AVG6\avgcc32.exe /STARTUP
This effectively "comments out, or rems out" that item.
I did this for all the REG_SZ items in my Run folder. When I
then logged out and logged back in I saw a DOS window flash up
and vanish, for each of my edits. You might try this on
just one item, log out, logon and notice the momentary
DOS window on logon, and that your task bar
has one less item on it. To get confidence you could then
undo what you did by deleting the "cmd /c rem " string
in the item, then logout/login and all should be back to normal.
To summarize: I prepended "cmd /c rem " to each REG_SZ items
in my Run folder, then I logged out and logged back in.
Warning: (Microsoft?) has some robotic watcher software that will
undo your changes to the string "mobsync.exe /logon", I think the
item name was "Synchronization Manager". I just accepted this,
you probably should just leave that item alone.
Next I stopped and disabled all services that I knew were the
result of software I had installed.
I probably rebooted, just prior to the install.
Finally I re-installed the HP printer software (the Jan 2004 version),
and it works fine!!
Of course I went back and re-enabled/restarted the services,
and removed the "cmd /c rem " from each item in the Run folder.
# ********************************************************************
# my rant
# ********************************************************************
WHY WHY WHY does the install run without error,
HP should write their installer so that it detects problems,
and unistalls itself when it fails! All my installs
were smooth wih no indication of a problem. :-<
Alternatively the install should be more modular, so that
only the successful modules are loaded, and a full uninstall
would not be required. Bare in mind that the installer
is about 400MB, and the uninstall/reinstall process takes
a good 2 hours on a reasonably fast box.
