A Printer problem that shouldn’t have been
by July 27th, 2008 Patrick Greer
First of all let me say one thing. I do NOT do technical support as part of my business for clients. However I will occasionally have a friend or relative who is less tech savy than I am ask me to come out and look at a computer, printer or other piece of electronic equipment that has somehow stopped working or not working like they expect. I do not advertise or offer these kind of services to the general public. This article is more of an opinion piece of customer experience as opposed to a “technician’s” story.
I got a call last week from a former supervisor who is now retired. He was very frustrated that his basic deskjet printer and just stopped working. Before going out to see what the problem was I asked the “obvious” questions; Is it plugged in? Is it connected to the computer? Could you have run out of ink? and so on as to avoid an unnecessary service call.
I went out, checked the power connection, connection between printer and computer and all looked fine. I then made sure his printer jobs had not gotten backed up. All looked well. Then I checked the software. I downloaded the latest printer drivers from Hewlett-Packard and before installing made sure I uninstalled the old software, just in case. Results? Nothing. Despite making sure I had everything connected properly and the proper software installed the computer could still not see the printer. I reasoned that something on it was broken and my former supervisor decided not to take up any more of my time and decided it was time to buy a new model and I agreed to return the next day when I was in the area to install it for him. The install of the new printer to a bit of time as well because of software issues but after an hour or so the new driver software installed and the new printer was up and running. He let me take his “old” HP Deskjet 3650 home with me including ink. I went online first to see if I needed to download drivers from my MacBook Pro laptop and surprisingly according to the HP web site all I needed to do was plug the print in. I was surprised to discover the printer itself was not broken. Somehow he had a lot of software conflicts on his Windows XP - HP computer! The Windows XP is not what bothers me. What bothers me is his computer (which is only a year or two old) is made by Hewlett-Packard, the same vendor who made the printer!
I’m glad I could plug the computer into my Mac without dealing with additional software as what I already needed to print already came with the Mac. I’m not going to talk bad about Microsoft or their Windows product. As I said, I’m not an expert on specific printer models (although I am well versed in how to prepare my design files for printers) and I’m not an expert on the files needed print this printer model from a Windows XP Machine but I should not have had the problems I did. I actually have certifications in computer repair and have done a lot of my own tech support within my company.
To Illustrate how well the HP Deskjet 3650 worked on my Mac the above image was printed from a photo I had run some watercolor effects on via Photoshop. I then scanned it in on my Epson Scanner to show how it printed the complex image which also illustrated that the ink cartridges were working and had plenty of ink.
Why was the software issues on the HP computer so complicated? It wasn’t the HP computer or the HP Printer that were the problems but rather a lot of “support” software than made things more difficult than it had to be. People think because I use and enjoy Macs by Apple, Inc. that I hate Windows. That is not true. More times than I can could most of the problems I have encountered on Windows based computer were on machines of friends or relatives that can with a lot of unneeded software provided by the vendor in addition to Windows and not Windows itself.
Have you encounter situations where installing, using or configuring a product was more complicated than it had to be? What solutions is your company providing to make things simple for the customer? Sadly a lot of the troublesome HP software designed to make things “easy” added an extra layer of complexity.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
My ex-wife bought an HP all-in-one and had be install it. It was ridiculous how much crapware it came with, and there was no way to NOT install it. Plugged it into the MacBook I bought for her daughter, and it worked right away.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:48 am
That’s interesting that you had a similar experience. His new printer finally worked and worked well but only after much wrangling with some stupid (as I perceived it) “HP Update” program. I’ve often said that I’m not a “Windows Hater” but rather I have had more and more bad experiences in the “field” with major “PC” vendors. However my biggest disappoint in this case was HP not going out of their way to makes thing easy and seamless with other products they produce.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I will never buy another HP printer if I can help it. I have switched our home and office to Canon printers. There are two reasons. First, HP adds too much crap to my XP computer. Second, and most importantly, many Canon printers use individual ink cartidges for each color. That way nothing is wasted. Print quality, in my opinion, is also far superior.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Yes, One of the things I am looking for in a new printer is the individual ink cartridges. At one time HP was pretty good when it came to printers but not in recent years. A lot of my most recent issues with HP printers used with a Windows based computer have been very similar. It’s somewhat off-topic but because of the better experience I had with the HP Printers on my Macs I was reminded of this little bit from Pirates of Silicon Valley starting at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds in this video from the link below;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCgB5fITxA4&feature=related