Alun,
The problem I am having is not with a HP printer driver. But it is with
software that comes with a HP Photosmart 4050 printer with an ethernet port.
It is hooked up using a router to a LAN and uses DHCP.
During installation of their software suite, it creates a permanent mapped
drive called X: and maps it to a share on their printer representing the
memory card. Their Transfer Images software that transfers images from the
memory card in the printer to the PC's hard drive using the ethernet
connection uses this X: drive as the source and requires it to be currently
connected.
The problem is that the X: drive may not be currently connected on boot up
of the PC for a number of reasons, including:
- The printer is on, but the user logs in before all required services have
started. This is usually what happens if the Welcome Screen is active and
only one eligible user is present and has no password.
- The printers is initially off (but turned on later).
In this situation, the X: drive is listed as "Disconnected Network Drive" in
Windows Explorer.
In this situation the drive is accessible through Windows Explorer. Opening
the X: folder connects to the share and results in its status being "Network
Drive" in Windows Explorer.
In this situation, however, the drive is NOT accessible in Transfer Images.
There is an error message in red. The drive must be opened in Windows
Explorer to force a connection and get Transfer Images to work.
HP's advice has always been to re-map the network drive manually, which
temporarily resolves the issue by forcing a connection, but after reboot the
issue is still present. To be clear, the drive mapping is permanent and
present after reboot, but the status of the drive is "Disconnected Network
Drive".
Finally, I told HP what my workaround was (open the drive in Windows
Explorer), and their attitude was that I should go ahead and use the
workaround then. I could not persuade them that it was an issue, let alone a
bug.
It seems like they should not require a mapped drive at all. Why not use a
UNC name? And what is preventing it from forcing a connection like Windows
Explorer?
Paul
Alan Morris said:
I have forwarded your message to an HP driver developer who is based here
at Microsoft but does work for HP. I will vouch that HP is concerned with
quality drivers they write.
Paul, are you having a problem with software or one of the print drivers?
If it's a print driver, let me know which driver and what the issue is and
I'll forward the information to the HP developer.
Clark, if the failure is in the HP setup program, it's possible to install
the driver from the inf file. What I have seen is the setup file will
extract all the dlls and other files into some temporary directory before
installing the printer. When the access check is performed there is a
dialog that gets posted. Do not dismiss the dialog because the clean up
routine will delete the temporary files.
Search for the file. If you have the printer installed on another machine
you can look at the driver properties for the file names. Just find one
name and look for it, the rest of the required files will be in the same
location or subdirectories.
Now run the Add Printer Wizard and use the have disk option to point at
the inf file in the temporary location.
I am not sure if this will completely work since the setup program may do
some other tasks in the registry but this may get your printer working.
Probably none of the other multifunction features though.
--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
Paul Baker said:
I wonder what kind of tracking software HP support has. Maybe they can
look Cari up by name and find something.
I haven't been too impressed with HP support myself. I found a bug in
their printing software and three times they gave me the same resolution
that does not truly resolve it, though each time I did what they said
just to prove them wrong. I can almost see in their code in my head and
what they are doing wrong, but I can't change their source code, can I?
They won't even admit it's a problem. I can explain it to them in
technical detail, but they just don't understand. I told each person that
my problem was not resolved and filled out a survey saying that my
problem was not resolved and they did not contact me about it. Apparently
they don't care.
Paul