Vista - Viewing Ink Levels

How can I tell how much ink I have in the printer cartridges? When I had XP it automatically showed up whenever I printed. Now I don't know how to access that information. Thanks Beau.

Hi Beau and welcome to Vista Forums

Unfortunately, that function was included in the printer drivers and Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, chose to remove that (and other functions) from the drivers that it integrated into the Vista OS. Either that, or the hardware vendors didn't include those options and instead provided Microsoft with basic drivers. As a result, the drivers included with the OS just provide basic operational capabilities. All printers should be able to report when they are out of paper, and I suspect that the same should be said as regards ink, even though the ink level itself isn't.

Actually, that depends on your printer and the drivers. I have both an Epson 2200 and a R800 printer, and my ink levels show when printing, and will even show levels when not printing. I should point out that Epson provides Vista 64-bit drivers for my printers, even though the printers are 5-6 years old.

I would suggest you look to your printer manufacture for drivers.

Agreed. I was talking about the integrated drivers. Vendors who choose to provide separate drivers on their websites may or may not choose to have this (and other) options included.

Figured I'd throw in...

I have never once seen a stock (ie. bundled on the Windows CD) print driver display ink drivers. In fact, I would be very surprised if Microsoft allowed that functionality in the drivers included along with the OS. And, for good reason, as listed below....

You are correct. Almost all hardware drivers in just about every version of Windows are actually coded by the manufacturer. Microsoft hands them the specifications and tests the driver to ensure it works properly, but they do not actually write the driver.

The drivers included with the OS are typically much trimmed down over what you can get off the manufacturer site. There are very good reasons for this, such as:

• the larger and more complex the driver is, the larger the chance of an unnoticed bug slipping through and crashing someone's computer.
• the more "feature packed" drivers that you get from the manufacturer take up a LOT more space on both the install media and your hard disk.
• the more "feature packed" the driver is, the more time and resources Microsoft has to spend testing it - the cost of which would undoubtedly be passed on to the customer

As far as I've ever seen, if you want extra features such as a pop-up displaying ink-levels, you've always had to install drivers from the manufacturer. The stock drivers are there to provide the minimum level of functionality, only.

@ ltwally, we already said that

@ Beau Bourne, as you can see from the posts, in order to get your ink level feature, you'll have to go to the manufacture's website and download the drivers and or software for you printer. As stated by all, Windows just gives basic print functionality.

Good luck.