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Color LaserJet 5 on Windows 7?

Sep 5, 2012 3:12 AM

Ok... I've asked "experts" and got rubbish ("use DriverWizard" and other such comments), so maybe somebody can lead me to a cobbled together solution.

I have a HP Color LaserJet5 (ozone included, and I have ~20 sets of toner and drums and other stuff that was thrown in). It works well (no photos, but color!) on Windows XP. On Windows 7, it appears they completely broke the PCL4 driver; all I get are pages of gibberish no matter what.

Is there a way I can use the printer under Windows 7? I have spare machines lying around, so if I could make one act as a "Postscript Color Printer" and get W7 to use that, I'd do it (but give me a couple of hints to get started)...

thormj thormj

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Try this page:

http://www.hp.com/cpso-support-new/SDD/main.htm?cc=us&lang=en

It's purpose is to detect your attached hardware and get you the right driver.

A quick Google on this issue will lead you to several discussion threads where folks have gotten their printers working, so if the HP site doesn't get the job done give Google a shot. My search phrase was "hp color laserjet 5 driver windows 7"

durkzilla durkzilla
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@durkzilla: Finally. HP's tool just says "can't determine driver status"...
I tried the steps at Toms before, but it didn't work. Now that jgugel went thru it step-by-step (including the print processor), it is happy at last.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/2412-63-color-laserjet-windows-update
Many, many thanks!

thormj thormj
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The problem is, Windows Vista, then Win 7 and even more, Win 8 changed the driver's system access to enhance security. From one standpoint, that "broke" the drivers written to work with Win XP, however vendors were given notice. Supporting multiple driver sets on dozens (or hundreds) of products is a daunting and expensive task. That's why HP had to decide which products would get new drivers and which would "sunset".

Your machine was well supported in XP, but was not considered worth future support.

Your choices include running Win XP in a virtual machine hosted on Win 7. That is explicitly supported in Win 7 Pro and Ultimate.

Or, your option is to sell me your printer and cartridges at a great price. I run Linux which provides open source, backward support for almost all the HP printer families on an ongoing basis.

Hmm, I guess you could also run Linux as a dual boot or set up one of several VM configurations. {wink}

tpscan tpscan

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