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Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

theregister.com

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Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#71

Post by nostromo »

breadwinner wrote: post #9

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

Apple seems to have solved this a long time ago.

I didn't even set up my printer, I just turned it on, connected it to the network, and all the Macs and iPhones print to it, no problem.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#72

Post by ReactiveJelly »

strangescript wrote: post #66
breadwinner wrote: post #9

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

No one says "I can't want to learn to code so I can program windows printer drivers". At the same time no company wants to pay the appropriate amount to hire people that can do this well. These two concepts come together in a fantastic display of mediocrity.

I might find it interesting, but I hate printer companies and they'd need to pay me extra to make up for the negative glamor

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#73

Post by saurik »

I use special printers that have weird features that require the ability to translate the data on the way to the printer, such as CYMW (W = White) printers (for printing on black or doing t-shirt transfers) or controlling the margins while printing on giant rolls of paper in my banner printer... I do a LOT of fiddling in the printer driver, and I hope that this isn't being somehow discontinued?

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#74

Post by bgc »

saurik wrote: post #73

I use special printers that have weird features that require the ability to translate the data on the way to the printer, such as CYMW (W = White) printers (for printing on black or doing t-shirt transfers) or controlling the margins while printing on giant rolls of paper in my banner printer... I do a LOT of fiddling in the printer driver, and I hope that this isn't being somehow discontinued?

You’ll still have the ability to install arbitrary drivers and support software obtained directly from the manufacturer, this change only means that Microsoft won’t automatically supply OEM driver files via Windows Update.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#75

Post by cstejerean »

skykooler wrote: post #64
gerdesj wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally your printer advertises itself via Bonjour/Avahi/SLP or whatevs. Ideally Windows receives these adverts and connects you to your printer. One or the other gets it wrong, with monotonous regularity. IPP is print anywhere and it sounds like its been branded "Mopria". I ditched a thing called HPLIP at home at least five years ago which used to be the cutting edge for Linux printing on HP printers. The bloke that…

Of course, not all routers (particularly combo router/modems provided by your ISP) support multicast DNS, so often this isn't an option.

I haven't seen a home router that doesn't support Bonjour in the past decade. It's a fundamental component in the Apple ecosystem and any home router that didn't allow one to wireless print from their iPhone would be considered broken.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#76

Post by cstejerean »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #65
mortenjorck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t comment on the file share tangent, but in my experience with a Bonjour-equipped Brother laser printer over the past eight or so years, I don’t think I can recall it failing to connect once. Granted, I’m on a Mac and I print about five times a year, so YMMV.

I don't doubt that a one computer, one printer, scenario is any problem for any OS. You'll see who the ugly one is when the kids play together. File sharing isn't a tangent. The purpose of Bonjour is to couple printing and file sharing as a network discovery protocol.

But a one printer one computer being a problem is precisely the issue in the thread at hand. Once the router reboots the printer changes IP address (since it gets a dynamic IP by default) and then Windows can't find it, hence the need to assign it a static IP.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#77

Post by dbt00 »

gerdesj wrote: post #46
breadwinner wrote: post #9

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

Ideally your printer advertises itself via Bonjour/Avahi/SLP or whatevs. Ideally Windows receives these adverts and connects you to your printer. One or the other gets it wrong, with monotonous regularity. IPP is print anywhere and it sounds like its been branded "Mopria". I ditched a thing called HPLIP at home at least five years ago which used to be the cutting edge for Linux printing on HP printers. The bloke that…

Airprint and Mopria are the same thing, IPP + discovery.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#78

Post by numpad0 »

acdha wrote: post #61
Gigachad wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t bother owning a home printer. They basically all suck. Easier to just go to the library and print.

1. Buy a Brother laser printer 2. Put it on your Wi-Fi 3. There is no step three This is basically like when people say dishwashers don’t do a good job because they’ve only bought ones designed by American MBAs. HP and Epson made good products in the previous century but are now customer-milking operations and it’s better to pretend they don’t exist.

Problem is high powered industrial dishwashers can't handle decorated plates ... pardon me, I meant to say color lasers can't handle photos well. If you're primarily printing texts and diagrams on A4 copier paper, this is total non-issue. But if you're looking to print nice colors, not necessarily.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#79

Post by nicbou »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

I live in the Apple ecosystem and I know HP does a lot of consumer-hostile stuff but I bought my HP laser from Costco (who refuse to sell subscription printers) mostly because of it's support for AirPrint with no additional software. And it works, the quality is great, and I'm happy. Didn't have to install anything.

I have a bog standard M28p that works without installing all the HP stuff, but it still earned the network name "That HP piece of s**".

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#80

Post by numpad0 »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #22
breadwinner wrote: post #9

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

ZeroConf actually works pretty well as long as everything is in the same range.

Range as in L2?
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