No Vista drivers for HP Color Laserjets

After a day of failing to get my LaserJet 2500 migrated from my old XP
system to my new VIsta machine I gave up and called HP Support. In
spite of what they say on their website the bottom line is there are no
Vista drivers available now (22 Mar 07) for the color LAserJet printers.
The HP rep said they had heard the drivers might be available by the
end of March.

It is possible to install the generic Laserjet PCL 5 driver and run the
printer in B/W mode ONLY IF it is attached to the parallel printer port.
But apparently nothing will allow the printer to communicate via its
USB port.

Surprisingly, when I put the printer back on my XP system (it's a shared
network printer there) Vista was still unable to add it. Go figure.

To quote Ralph Cramden: What a sad state of affairs this is.
--
Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com

I see they have the EasyCare toolkit for VISTA now (although it's dated
November 2006 it's a recent release I believe) so you might try
installing that since it does enable you to vary settings.

"Birk Binnard" <birkb@NOSPAMbirkbinnard.com> wrote in message
news:uk3i0ZNbHHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> After a day of failing to get my LaserJet 2500 migrated from my old XP
> system to my new VIsta machine I gave up and called HP Support. In spite
> of what they say on their website the bottom line is there are no Vista
> drivers available now (22 Mar 07) for the color LAserJet printers. The HP
> rep said they had heard the drivers might be available by the end of
> March.

There are now drivers available (Dated 23 Mar 07) at
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...&swEnvOID=2093

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

Been there...done that. Those are PCL only drivers -- these let the
printer work in B/W mode only; no color support.
--
Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com

That software is the status monitor, supply ordering, etc. stuff that
appears to be ok but cannot communicate with the printer becasue there
are no working drivers.
--
Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com

In message <uk3i0ZNbHHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl> Birk Binnard
<birkb@NOSPAMbirkbinnard.com> wrote:

>After a day of failing to get my LaserJet 2500 migrated from my old XP
>system to my new VIsta machine I gave up and called HP Support. In
>spite of what they say on their website the bottom line is there are no
>Vista drivers available now (22 Mar 07) for the color LAserJet printers.

Depends on the model -- My 2605dxi works great when connected directly
to the LAN, or shared out from another PC. I have not attempted to
connect the USB cable directly to my PC.

What connection methods do you have?
--
Insert something clever here.

The LJ2500 has one USB connector and one parallel port connector. I was
able to get the printer to print in B/W only using the parallel port,
but was unable to get any communication with it using USB.
--
Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com

"Birk Binnard" <birkb@NOSPAMbirkbinnard.com> wrote in message
news:uGQv43QbHHA.4872@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Been there...done that. Those are PCL only drivers -- these let the
> printer work in B/W mode only; no color support.

Are you sure? I just downloaded and installed the PCL 6 drivers posted last
night (dated 23 Mar 07) and they seem to support color. PCL 5 and 6 do
support color. I do not have a PCL 6 printer to test it with, but the
driver tabs indicate color support.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

I'm sure. The PCL drivers are only for non-USB devices or network
attached printers.
--
Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com

I'm a great believer in "when all the possible solutions have failed,
try the impossible ones".

Have you tried using Add Printer, ignoring the this will not work with
USB printers which install automatically, and selecting from the
printer list HP & 2500C ?

I have an LJ2200 installed. Under XP it was USB connected & installed
under one of those weird DOT4 ports when I installed VISTA and when
VISTA finished installing itself it found the LJ2200 and the PS8250 and
installed them with no problems. As far as I can see both drivers are
pretty full featured. The LJ2200 includes duplexing and the PS8250
definitely prints in color and sizes to fit etc.

Personally what I would do is uninstall the printer installation you
have and start all over again. I'd try just letting VISTA install it by
rebooting with the printer connected and turned on and if that does not
work I'd try forcing the HP 2500C driver that comes up when you use
Start / Settings / Printers / Add Printer

Good luck.