HP Officejet D155xi and Vista

Hi,

I have an OfficeJet D155xi with duplex facility and lower tray. This
has been a brilliant all-in-one and my current setup has it connected
(via JetDirect interface supplied) to my SBS2003 server and shared on my
network.

When all my client pcs were XP, I had no problem with this and was
happily using print, scanning and fax via the HP drivers that came with
the printer.

Two of my client laptop pcs had motherboard faults so I replaced them
with new ones which had Vista on them (one was home premium and the
other Ultimate). I have had nothing but trouble since then with
printing, no scanning and I have now abandoned faxing.

*Connectivity* - initially I simply the Vista machines to the nework
and added a network attached printer (in the form of '\\server\share'
(file://\\server\share) name). This resulted in me being able to print
but I had no advanced features and no option to do duplex printing
despite having a XP machine side by side connected in exactly the same
way and working perfectly OK. Whats more, if I right click on the
printer and select properties/Printing Preferences, a window opens and
imediately closes. Result its pointless trying to print to this
networked shared printer.
I then setup a new printer but this time did it through a TCPIP
connection to the JetDirect interface, bypassing the server. That
worked and gave me more options on the printer properties dialog but....

*Duplex Printing* - using the "out-of-the-box" driver in Vsita installs
ok and recognises the lower tray and the fact that the duplex unit is
installed but it only offers the do duplex manually. I eventually found
the advanced setting that cured that one but duplex printing still
failed with a "conflict" between that and the media type (???). Many
posts else where here brough up the name of BobH who emailed me a patch
which has now cured that problem. Thank you Bob.

*Scanning* - No chance unless the printer is USB connected. Don't even
start me on the "Scan To" button....

*Fax* - given up. Can't even get it to work throught the SBS Fax
share, just keeps reporting that it can't connect.

I agree with a lot of the posts here that the quality of the printer
drivers in Vista, especially for slightly older printers, are not very
good at all and am very surprised that HP don't apepar to care about it
- there has been enough time since Vista was released to fix this
problem. These printers were expensive units when new and are very good
printers - hence why they last so long, but in todays world, you can't
just throw them away and buy new ones just for the sake of someone at HP
taking a bit of time and looking after existing customers rather than
only focusing on "new" customers. It will only result in the "new"
customers looking for a "new" printer supplier who actually cares about
them.


Cheers


--
ITSparkles