Installing a networked printer on Vista for me has been a collection of bad memories -especially when the shared printer has been on a desktop running Windows XP. For some reason the print spooler keeps committing suicide on both the machines and the only way to get it working is by rebooting the computers one by one 4,5,6ne 4,5,6
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
5 And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee: for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders.  

WP-Bible plugin times till it starts working. Although this seemed to work for my friend (or so he claimed) this hit and miss technique never worked for me.  Printers shared on Windows or on Linux through Samba or otherwise ultimately have their own shortcomings. Sometimes a careless user prints out all of 200 pages instead of the current page and comes running asking me to cancel it. On Windows its the usual bull -the job cannot be deleted… you restart the computer, the printer and everyone else’s computer and Windows is still “deleting” the job.  Quite often I have had to stop the pint spooler service, hunt for the job and kill it manually.

This year I was more fortunate. Office bought 3 HP network Lasers. A  P2055Dn (Duplex), and two  P2014n’s. Magically 90% of my recurring printer calls vanished and another 5% were  the usual imaginary (virtual) complaints -but my printer setup problems were not over yet! Ubuntu was the easiest. In Jaunty, the moment I open the printer configuration tool and click on Add printer, in almost no time I can see the printer. It also selects the right driver -so  installing on Jaunty is a breeze. Coming to the Mac & to Windows XP, if you have the CD it is still a cinch, but it takes 5-6 times longer than that on Ubuntu for installation on the machines, thanks to HP’s bloatware.  If the HP software keeps prompting you that the original cartridge is not original, it is perhaps because you forgot to remove the orange plastic guard fixed over the contacts of the cartridge microchip to prevent it from getting scratched.  This happened to me and I kept wondering why HP’s software kept accusing me of using a cartridge which was not original when using the cartridge that came along with the printer. However on buying a new cartridge, I did not find any guard over the chip.

On Windows Vista, the software for the P2055dn installs flawlessly, sadly that cannot be said for the P2014n. Every time you install (try to) on Vista, you get an ugly rectangular box containing hexadecimal swear words and a red cross adorned with an OK button. Finally I  put away the CD and downloaded a fresh copy of HP’s bloatware from HP Support to no avail. After a lot of figuring out and Googling I found out how it is done. Quite easy actually. If your HP software crashes when it tries to install the printer, follow the instructions below.

Instead of running the installer from HP’s printer driver CD!  Open Control Panel > Printers

Click on Add Printer

Click on Add a network or wireless or Bluetooth printer and click next

Select your HP Network printer

It might ask you for the driver, so click on Have Disk...

Browse to your HP driver CD or your downloaded and extracted driver from HP's support site

Select the correct driver. Remember that a duplex printer has a d at the end and a network printer an n. dn stands for a network printer that can print in duplex - i.e. on both sides of the paper automatically.

You can christen your printer if you feel like it -or leave it at the default name

Yippee!

Note: You will have problems connecting to the printer using this method if the printer has a dynamic IP address. You must ensure your Network Laserjet has a static IP -if not, whenever your DHCP Server assigns a new IP address to your Laserjet, your computers setup using the procedure outlined above will not print (including those on Linux). Windows XP based computers and Macs on which the installation was done through HP’s software did not have this problem and successfully located the printer even if the IP address had changed. Windows XP & Vista do have provision for configuring a printer with a dynamic IP address. If it interests you, you can find the instructions here.

However  I strongly recommend a static IP address as it will enable you to be certain of the IP address of the printer thus helping you to configure printer parameters easily through its  web interface. Unfortunately the HP 2014N does not come with an LCD display like the HP P2055n so all global configuration happens via the web interface.

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