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DanielTFlag for Canada

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Shared Printer on Win7 crashes in WinXP

Hey - I have a bit of a dilemma that someone may have run across.

I have an HP USB inkjet hosted on a Windows 7 Pro 64bit PC with the latest drivers installed and all is fine. The printer works great. When I install the printer on a networked Windows XP 32bit system there is no correct driver available. So... I went back to the Windows 7 machine and checked under sharing for the drivers installed and, of course, only the 64bit driver was listed so I figured I just needed to add it so it would be available when requested across network.

The problem is - I cannot find the INF file I need. The software installs itself only for the Win7 OS with no option for addditional drivers and I cannot install on the XP machine as the printer is not there and software does not load drivers until the printer is connected. There is a basic driver that installs in WinXP when you allow Windows to 'search' but it crashes when you try to change any printer settings (but will print otherwise).

What to do?

Dan

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Sanga Collins
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you may want to download the 32bit drivers from the hp website. You can then go into printers and faxes, click on the file menu and select sever properties. Click on the tab labled 'drivers' and you can install the 32bit driver without the printer being connected.

Now you can add the printer as a network printer by using the option 'connect to printer' and entering the UNC path to the win7 computer (\\win7pc\shared-ptr-name)

hope this helps!
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Davis McCarn
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http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/ProductList.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=3204462&taskId=135
Choose your printer, navigate to the windows 7 and download the 32 bit drivers.
You can not install 32bit drivers on the 64bit system.  You need to run and make sure to note where the drivers are expanded.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=3204462&prodNameId=3339734&swEnvOID=4062&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=mp-74848-1

Then go through the printer properties sharing, additional drivers, and select the 32bit option.  Then point the search for the drivers to the location where you extracted.  This should do it.
The system sharing the printer should have the versions of the drivers that match the systems that will be accessing it.
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ASKER

Sorry for delay in updating... this was urgent enough at the time I needed to post but also that I needed to workaround. Will get back to this as soon as possible as I still want to resolve, if possible.
I've requested that this question be deleted for the following reason:

Not enough information to confirm an answer.
I find the reason for the deletion amusing.
A person goes to a doctor with a complaint, "I have a shooting pain up and down my right side".  The doctor prescribes medication and treatment.  The person three/four month later calls the doctor and says, "I've neither took the medication nor underwent the treatments. Since there is not enough information to confirm that the medication or the treatment would have worked  and since I still have the shooting pain, I am not paying or I want a refund."
Since i have this environment at work (mixed 64/32 machines from xp to vista to win7 and server 2003) i can confirm it works. still reason for delete is lazy
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BIG apologies to those who have posted. I would still like to resolve the issue but it is LOW priority (now). If it can be left posted, great. Otherwise do waht's needed.
It is up to you on whether to terminate the process (object).
Not sure what "low priority" in this circumstance means.  One either adds the drivers on the windows 7 from which the printer is shared or does not. It is not a time consuming process.
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arnold/sangamc,
Note that the request to delete is not lazy nor did it even come from the "patient". With ranks of wizard and genius, you should surely know that this is a normal admin process after a question has had little or no activity and frankly, I don't blame them for posting it.

The fact that they had to is not admirable on my part but was never intentional and is just the way this question has (unfortunately) gone. I have made posts politely advising of this (before and after this 'event').

arnold,
Although your post back awhile may well be useful, your recent posts have not been,  whatsoever. Please maintain your prior focus.

This is an internal network issue and not at a client's site. That should say enough. It is therefore LOW priority - nothing hard to understand there. Your Doctor analogy was rather overstated. For now, this Doctor has some dying patients to attend to - the sniffling ones have to wait.

Bottom line...
If attempt to keep the thread alive on the basis of low priority bothers you, simply advise and I will approve the moderator's suggestion.
"Dr." Daniel,

Quite correct, my overly broad and ambiguous comment (open to interpretation) was a bit much.
I know what a "low priority" is and at times "meant do not spend hours on it" but if you can take 5/10 minutes to try something which might resolve this issue.  An inevitable result with a crashing workstation is that it may crash in a most inconvenient and depending on whose information is lost because of it, it may quickly become a "top priority."  The crash might occur when the user prints to this printer. The wrong drivers/response panics the kernel triggers a reboot.  Alternatively, the wrong printer driver might be a coincidence to something else on the system failing (memory).
I agree. After reading through the thread completely, it should be allowed to close through the normal clean process. My apologies for being too quick on the trigger. Please don't let this discourage you from using EE  in the future.
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Hey guys... thanks for your most recent posts - appreciated (again)!

Never expected this to drag out like this. Still want it resolved but sorry, just cannot do right now. I will get back to it if EE is kind enough to let it stand or, perhaps more accurately, sit!  :))  for awhile longer...
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Moderator, as is clear in the thread.
Please leave this open.
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I do not have an answer on this yet (NEVER would have imagined such a delay myself) but I actually expect to be able to look at this tomorrow!!! (Once again for this who have offered help - Sorry)
In my first post ( #36505457 ), I gave you a link to a unified x86 and x64 driver for your printer and the INF you requested is hpohsla.inf.
You will have to uninstall any and all drivers currently on all of the systems so you can use the ones I listed; but, as I said, the only way to have a shared printer work in a mixed O/S environment is to have exactly the same driver version on all of the systems.
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Hi DavisMcCarn

I think you may be on the right track.
This mix of O/S's and the 32/64bit platforms seems to be the sore spot.

Thanks for reposting and for the INF reference. I have been back at this issue and indeed it is a pain. The "driver" software provided by HP seems to check the system it is being installed on and (I think) expands only drivers for that platform. This prevents adding drivers via the 'server options' route that would allow providing to a connecting system. Another problem I was having was in not knowing where or which INF file to use - also a pain. Preferred it when there were simply folders for each supported O/S vs what HP has done here!

You caught me at a good time though. I have just removed HP software from the WinXP machine as well as the driver reference in server properties. I will do the same on the Win7 machine and then  reinstall with the "IT Pro" bundle.

This is, however, listed as a "basic driver" and I am not sure how it may affect functionality of the multifunction. We'll see...
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BTW - the printer is an HP Photosmart C5280. I will look up the drivers for that - not sure of differences between it and the link to HP Photosmart C5240 drivers. Thanks for picking up the Photosmart printer from the tags though - I should have had it in the details when I realized the question was not quite so "routine".
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Well - this was/is a disaster and has taken far too much time. I tried all of the suggestions and even much more but it just will not work between Win7 and WinXP with the 32bit/64bit complication added.

The closest I got was to use the full HP exe for installation on the Win7 system. The "network" bundled EXE did not work on Win7, 64bit. This was after a deinstall and cleanup - even including rougue registry values left behind. Once Win7 was finally working again, I tried to use the network version install pkg on WinXP and actually thought there would be some progress.

It stated a command line install was required so it was run as they recommended, specifying the host system. It just did not work - the install was looking for files that did not exist. But I had come this far - and they were just support files - so I went looking for them. But even after pointing to existing files the install was looking for it was not successful in the end. Again - it seems that HP's software is trying to decide what it should do and the mix of 32bit and 64bit is just not handled well.

So - I am back to square one - and my initial post. Fully working on Win7, 64bit and partial functioning on WinXP 32bit that crashes when printer options are accessed.

I will now close the thread as "not resolvable", at least with the driver files as supplied by HP.

Thanks MUCH for the patience!  Must say I expected it to be much easier. I have installed many printers before and have not had this kind of problem without being able to resolve.
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As much as I hate to have something unresolved, the complication of mixed OS AND 32/64bit architecture makes this a big issue, afterall. At least with this particular product.