Trouble designating a default printer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike

I have an HP4650 and an Epson CX4800. I am using Windows Xp Home. When I try
to change the default designation from the HP to the Epson the computer upon
closing the control panel reverts to the HP. I can get the Epson to print,
but this is aggravating. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Mike said:
I have an HP4650 and an Epson CX4800. I am using Windows Xp Home. When I
try to change the default designation from the HP to the Epson the computer
upon closing the control panel reverts to the HP. I can get the Epson to
print, but this is aggravating. Any advice would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
That would be a 'feature' of the printer driver software.... you'd need to
ask HP to change their drivers so that the printer doesn't make itself the
default.
 
It sounds like the HP printer is overzealously seeking control of the
printer spooler. It may be that the HP driver was designed to maintain
the default position in cases of temporary driver corruption, but this
is not a good driver design, since it is problematic when you have more
than one printer.

If you installed the HP after the Epson was installed, you might try
reinstalling the Epson driver and see if it is a bit more willing to
"share", however, this may be a problem with how the HP driver was
written, in which case you should check HP's website and see if they
have upgraded the driver, and if not, ask them to look into this.

Art
 
Arthur Entlich said:
It sounds like the HP printer is overzealously seeking control of the
printer spooler. It may be that the HP driver was designed to maintain
the default position in cases of temporary driver corruption, but this is
not a good driver design, since it is problematic when you have more than
one printer.
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention that. We have the opposite problem with one
computer at wok. The Epson keeps coming up as default and we want it to be
the HP. Based on your suggestion, I'm going to re-install both drivers to
see if that takes care of it.
 
Edwin said:
Funny you should mention that. We have the opposite problem with one
computer at wok. The Epson keeps coming up as default and we want it to be
the HP. Based on your suggestion, I'm going to re-install both drivers to
see if that takes care of it.
Click to expand...

Just a thought but it's possible your printer default settings are being
set by a global policy object setting or a login script if you're using
a networked PC.

I've done that with a schools setup and it reverts the default back to
the one I set each time...

Just figured you might want to check out that possibility for a work
scenario.
 
That's a really good point. One forgets how much control can be lost in
Network settings with printers.

By the way, I should also mention a good resource for network printing
issues, since I know the guy personally ;-)

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/

Art
 
That's a really good point. One forgets how much control can be lost in
Network settings with printers.
Click to expand...

Even in a non-networked environment one still needs the appropriate system
level privileges to be able to do this as well, no?
 
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