I bought a new laptop last week that has vista business installed. I have two questions if you (or anyone else) can answer.
First, the computer is an HP pavillion in the dv2000 series (not sure exactly which one). The *&^%$(#! HP registration keeps popping up and won't go away even after I have filled it out and registered. It is driving me nuts! Any cures?
Also, my HP 750 printer from 2002 does not seem compatible with vista. I tried installing it and it says it can't find the correct operating system. Do I need to buy a new printer too?
I just hate change, hate it. Any feedback would be appreciated.
HP has rudimentary Vista drivers available for alot of printers on there homepage, thats where I got mine at, go to www.hp.com and find the link to software and drivers downloads and see if they have the software. As far as for the HP activation issue, I would call them.My activation went through painlessly w/o a hiccup so I just don't know what to tell you.
Wait til new printer drivers are released. Or if you can't wait, try running the printer in compatibility mode.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Also, my HP 750 printer from 2002 does not seem compatible with vista. I tried installing it and it says it can't find the correct operating system. Do I need to buy a new printer too?
Welcome to my personal hell. I bought my wife a new entry level laptop a few weeks back (Compaq Presario C501NR). It came with Vista basic. I did some basic research but not as much as I should have.
First of all, I had to get a memory upgrade to bump the system up to 1GB RAM. It came with 512MB and there's no way you can run that OS and have anything left for other programs. No big deal as the memory was cheap and was easy to slap in.
Then I went to install the HP Jet Suite program on the laptop. Jet Suite is the application "control center" for my HP 3150 multifunction printer. I have that printer hooked up to an HP Jet Direct 170x printer sharing box which allows it to sit on the network with an IP address. As long as my systems have that Jet Suite program on it, I can set up the printer. I have 3 other systems in the house, all with XP Pro SP2 and no issues getting the printer to work. However, the software won't install on the Vista system as it's not compatible.
No problem, I think to my self. I can just manually add a printer and direct it to the IP I have on the Jet Direct box and install a universal driver. I go to type in the IP, Vista comes back and says "Hey, that's an HP 3150 I see over there. Would you like to install the driver?" Whew! Finally! I click yes and it comes back and says "HA-HA... Fooled ya! Not gonna happen". Of course I'm paraphrasing here but you get the drift.
I go onto do my research and low and behold... HP won't be developing any drivers for my perfectly fine HP 3150. I called HP and asked if there's any other driver I can use (which I already tried but thought I might be missing something) and they told me that because of the way the Jet Suite software controls the printer, that a straight-up driver won't work.
Ok... so where does that leave me? I have to buy a new printer. And of course I can't get anything simple like an HP 1018 or 1020. Noooo... those aren't networkable (which is a must for my situation). Even if I could squeeze one of those stand-alone toaster-sized printers onto my wife's desk, the affordable (read that as I'm kinda pissed that I have to drop even MORE cash onto this venture and am trying to find a cheap solution) Vista compatible. Of course the marketing material says they're Vista ready, but the technical pages say a driver hasn't been written yet.
I asked HP/Compaq if I could downgrade my system to XP Pro and they said the system was specifically designed for Vista and that I'd be opening a huge can of worms if I tried. I'm not sure I completely buy the first part of that but the second part is more than likely spot-on. Anyway, it's enough for me to keep from trying it. With me, adventures like that always turn out like that muddy slide down the mountain a-la Romancing the Stone
The moral of the story, I think, is that you need to do ALL your compatibility homework before dropping any cash on anything having to do with the Vista OS.
Here are a couple of links that may prove useful. Careful, the first one "requires" a Microsoft Internet Explorer browser to view (figures):
Microsoft Vista Hardware Compatibility List:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/hcl/
HP Product Support Matrix (for Vista):
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00808536