GRRR!

Some months ago, Mom caught a good deal on a new all-in-one machine. Fine. Being "her IT guy," it was on me to set it up. No sweat. She brought it to me so I could make it all work well before bringing it to her. Well, okay, that makes sense.

I plugged it in, I connected it, I copied, I scanned, I printed... all was well. So I delivered it. And then it proved itself to be a pain, not scanning in color. WTH?? I clearly TOLD it I wanted a color scan... but NO! It was not to be had.

So. Mom says, "Well, my existing machine isn't fully dead yet. Take this one back to your place and figure it out... maybe mine will hold on for a while longer. Heck, even keep it if you like it, and I'll get another." Super. Back home with it, I go.

The primary benefit to me for this machine is the automatic document feeder. And I have a 20-pager I want to scan. So let's get to it! It's been sitting here for way too long now, and today I figured I'd connect it to my PC and try again. Connects, communicates, all's well. Right?

WRONG!

Darned thing tells me the ADF is open, and won't feed a page. Over and over, I remove half-fed pages, open and close the ADF, and so on. Nothing.

Okay, I'll settle in and start from scratch. Get out the CD, install the software. NOPE! Gotta go online to get the software. (They why the heck did you send a CD with the device?) Go online, download, install... good. Click the "Launch" button. And then... here we go... gotta go online again with a Microsoft account (presumably because this machine is on Windows 10 and the printer software is an app). "Sign in with your Microsoft account!" Oh, fudge... I don't know the password for that!

Okay, go through the password recovery bit. Easy, right? NOPE!! Can't log in, doesn't recognize the ID and password, blah blah blah. But? But? You just texted me a code and put me through the Captcha thing and all that! Why don't you recognize me?

Oh, I see. "There's a problem with your account. Log in at account-dot-live-dot-com (or something like that). Why? I just did that, to get my danged new password?

Okay. Log in. "There'a a problem with your account." No s***, Sherlock. That's why I'm online. Again. (Heaven forbid I actually might want to install and use this machine somewhere where there's no Internet service!) Grind through that routine and find... well, now the scanner feeds just dandy!

So now it will scan (in black and white at least -- I haven't tried color again yet). But it has to use its own app. Geeze. Will it scan directly from Acrobat? Let's try it! Load document, tell Acrobat to scan it... "ding-dong!" There's the fault alert.

Unload document, reload document, press the "scan" button on the machine. Nnnnope!

Okay, let's launch the danged HP Smart app again. Blue dots swirling... blue dots swirling... get distracted and try to figure out what this key on my desk goes to... look at the monitor... blue dots swirling... app won't launch. DANGIT! Not too frickin' smart, are you, HP?

Let's reboot. Easy, right? NO! There are updates to be installed, NOW, so even that will take longer than it's supposed to.

"Okay, vthoky, breathe." Go move the laundry around while this processes.
Reboot is complete. Launch the app. It works! Hooray!

Wait. What? I can't scan at anything over 300 DPI through the app? Gah!!
But it scanned, and it saved. But not directly from Acrobat, so I get to close the HP app, launch Acrobat, navigate through the file structure... find the file, load it up... okay. Looks good, but was a pain to do.

Now I'm hearing Mom's voice in my head: "Son, these machines are supposed to make my life easier. This is not easier."

Silently, I'm thinking, "No kidding, Mom. Not helping me right now either."

Audibly, I'm blurting out words that make me glad Mom's not within hearing distance. They would not earn me any "good son points," that's for sure.

Have I mentioned, "GRRR!"

Ha! Great rant!

I see two problems:

1. Windows
   
   
2. HP

OOH! OOH! Guess what!

The HP app won't scan both sides of the page -- there's no option for that!

For what it's worth, I have had great service from Brother printers.

I made a dumb mistake a year or so ago, bought a Samsung. I gave it away and replaced it with a Brother. We have one in my wife's office, one at home, and I have one in the office in the hangar that has been banging away for more than ten years.

Geeze. HP used to be "The S**t."
Seems now they're just s**t.


- - - -

Update: Acrobat is smart enough to scan both sides of the page! Woohoo!

Darned thing still won't scan in color, though.

Grr.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
OOH! OOH! Guess what!

The HP app won't scan both sides of the page -- there's no option for that!

That's the killer. One would think that if it has an ADF, it should but the specs doesn't say that.

I hate HP but that's the only printer I buy.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Ha! Great rant!

I see two problems:

1. Windows
   
   
2. HP

The only way it could be worse is if there was a Compaq in the mix. I'm still dealing with Windows as I hate Apple with a passion. Equipment/Software: Okay. Company: Craptastic.

I only reluctantly gave up Windows XP for Windows 7 Pro as Every. Single. One. of their "new and improved" releases is a giant pain in the ass.

My HP8715 does that from time to time, it just won't scan, the software loses connectivity, and sometimes it's a bit of work to get it back functioning and sometimes just turning off the printer and turning it back on helps.

The HP scan software does a decent enough job with it's options,

I run mine with a wireless network connection.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Ha! Great rant!

I see two problems:

1. Windows
   
   
2. HP

The only way it could be worse is if there was a Compaq in the mix. I'm still dealing with Windows as I hate Apple with a passion. Equipment/Software: Okay. Company: Craptastic.

I only reluctantly gave up Windows XP for Windows 7 Pro as Every. Single. One. of their "new and improved" releases is a giant pain in the ass.

Your comments re Apple: I have found their hardware to be high quality, in every device that I use: iMac and MacBook family of computers, tablets (iPad), phones, and now the watch that I just bought from Ronin1069. No complaints.

Software, my experience is much more stable than Windows. Not surprising, since the software comes from the hardware vendor, so one would expect far fewer problems with things like drivers, etc. since there are fewer variables. Updates are easy, and new versions of the OS are free. FREE, I tell you, as in no cost!

As far as the company goes, I see a two-sided coin. They have always given me great support with respect to "repair or replace." Attitude of the people in the store varies, from super helpful to snotty. Company's political orientation does not agree with most of the people on this forum. I take secret pleasure from the fact that I ALWAYS carry a concealed SIG when I set foot in their store. As in, "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

Re Windows, I was forced to move from XP to 7. I did not get 7 Pro, I opted for the simplest, smallest footprint version: Windows 7 Home Basic. It just needs to support my Windows-based bookkeeping software, which runs in a virtual machine on the Mac using VMware Fusion. Once installed, I disabled MicroSoft's updates. I figure that there's no security problem with that since I do not use Windows for anything other than the bookkeeping programs. All web browsing, email, etc. is done on the Mac. No pain-in-the-ass Windows updates.

Friends don’t let friends buy HP.

Their big, expensive office stuff is OK, but their consumer stuff is just junk.

I like my Brother duplex wireless printer.

I'm headed over to my mother's today, one of the tasks is to try and get her printer working.

I've never owned a printer, but every home printer I've tried to use since college is a pain. It seems like the only printers that work are the large industrial units I've had at work.

Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQdNbvSGok

Marzy, you nailed it!

Here's the news: Mom got a new printer!

It's another HP, handed to me with a smile: "Can you make this work before putting it on my desk?"

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Wow, I've never had many issues with HP. Just bought two, one for us and one for the in-laws. Didn't have any issues setting up either, even on their ancient Dell desktop.

quote:

Originally posted by SigM4:
Wow, I've never had many issues with HP.

HP has long been my go-to. These events may signal the end of that. Brother is looking good right now.

I was once like you, a total HP printer snob. Mostly from my experiences with their stuff like a 4si and 4m.

Fast forward twenty years to about four years ago. I purchased two printers at the same time. One was a Brother MFC8800dw, and the other was a HP1100w.

The Brother has been flawless. There was no real setup for my Macs and i thingys other than choose it from a list. Turned it on and it just worked with everything. Scans like a dream with the Macs built-in Image Capture.

This damn little HP just decides to quite working wirelessly for no apparent reason. It gives me Windows 95 tech support flashbacks. It’s like the thing is possessed. HP printers sure aren’t what they used to be.

I just had the Officejet 7000 go toes up at my Engineering work station. Thing was a royal PITA and a HUGE disappointment after being spoiled for many years by an HP 1220C. That old 1220 would start printing the instant you hit the print button. The 7000 would go into a 2 or 3 minute cleaning cycle when you hit print 80% of the time and if you were printing multiple document you had to get the new document started before the old one finished or you would be waiting thru ANOTHER cleaning cycle. So, I am rather glad to see the end of that ink wasting PIECE OF SHIT and I will NEVER EVER purchase another HP printer.

More good news is the positive reviews for Brother. Because the new MFC6935DW should be hear next Monday. Hopefully the Win XP driver I downloaded will function well and won't be a hassle to install.

Yeah, I'm still in the XP stone age because Autocad 2000 works quite well for me and it's the last version of Autocad that will work with all the custom menus and Lisp programs I've been writing and tweaking since Autocad 2.52.

PS: Virtual Box is the magic bullet for getting a stable Virtual Machine to run older software and by copying the VDI file it's nearly a drag and drop to install everything all at one simple copy operation on a new Win 10 machine.

I finally had to replace my little HP Laserjet 1010. I had that thing since my Windows 98 days, I think. It's been so long that I have forgotten. I do know that I needed to mess around with the driver for it to get it to work with Windows 7, as there wasn't a driver for windows 7 for it. Ended up using a driver for a different printer designed for 64 bit Vista, and it worked like a champ. Finally retired it when I went to 10 as I couldn't get it to connect over the network reliably. Got whatever the current version of the 1010 HP has out now. Works like a champ.
PC all the way for me. Only good piece of tech that Apple has is the iPhone, which I use. Their computers and tablets are vastly overpriced for what you get.