Posted: 12/26/2004 1:50:06 PM EDT
| Anyone know what I have to do to temporarily disable the hardware auto-installation feature of Windows? A friend's computer is treating his new all in one printer like a plug and play device and it keeps trying to set it up automatically. I cancel it when I get the prompt but it tries again while installing the printer software and screws it up. |
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All in one printers suck... Windows does not really support the idea of one device being a scanner, printer, fax at same time.. so the hardware vendor has to write a magical (huge & bloated) chunk of software to extend windows to play nice with the fraken-printer... which is nice in theory, but the vendors never seem to get it quite right. My work tried them, and no one used it. It was faster and easier, to buy a good printer, a good fax and a good scanner. |
First thing I did, and I've only gone over them five times. Plug in printer, THEN put in the cd. I've tried the reverse but the cd will not install software until the printer is plugged in. Windows keeps doing it's own thing in between. I cancel the initial attempt Windows makes to install the device itself, but it attempts to anyway while the installation cd is running and messes things up. I've been trying to find out how to shut the feature off for about 15 minutes now and cannot find an answer. |
This is for home use. He doesn't need it for everything and only wants to use it with his pc for printing and occassionally scanning. He also wanted to use it as a copier which it does not need the pc for. I told him to get separate devices but some people can't afford to do that. I have tried everything I can think of to just get it to print and want to make sure it's not Windows fault before I tell him to return it. |
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You can disable the "Plug and Play" service, then reboot. Then when done, re-anable it, and reboot. However - this might not allow the drivers to install correctly. Worth a shot. I typically dont try things.... I read the instructions and follow them to the letter. Always seems to get me by. 
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Thank you for the suggestion but I am pretty sure it's a software problem (printer cd) at this point. We finally got the entire program to download from the cd without Windows interrupting it and it still did not fix things. I told him to take it back and see if he can exchange it for a better brand. I always follow directions, even with LEGO's. Sometimes the people writing them just don't know as much as they should about things and that's what happened. I even had my fiancee try everything just to make sure I wasn't missing something. We had it hooked up right and it is supposed to be compatible with his software. PointlessSilly was probably right. I think the manufacturer screwed something up. |
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You need to go into device manager and identify the device listed as "unknown" or needing a driver. Then load your drivers through device manager, while the CD is still in the computer. It should search the CD for the right driver for whatever component you are trying to install. Even though it is an "all in one" there are times that Windows will recognize individual components as seperate devices. |
I couldn't even get to that point without the pc freezing up at first. I tried after getting all of the software to download but it didn't do squat. |