We have a contender to exceed Microsoft's stupidity... and it is....
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
We use Cannon at home. This thing prints/scans with one klick from everywhere - iOS, Windows, Android. I think if I just give it a kick, it will start printing...something. In fact, I'm convinced this printer is like the semi's brakes - the default state is printing, it needs power and software to hold it from printing.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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I'm okay if they want to change their business model, etc. What I am not okay with is when the printer won't print. And it does not tell you why. And the software doesn't tell you why. Or they make a trivial process harder than it needs to be. It's like Windows 11 and Microsoft's rape of the menus and what not. They *say* it was for a better user experience, but I challenge anyone from MS to justify it. Now I read that one of the later updates reduces file transfer performance by 40%. Huh? HOW DO YOU BREAK THAT? :)
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
There's been instances where I've successfully extracted the installer content to a folder on disk. With that available, instead of running the setup.exe or whatever bootstrap process installs the whole thing, I just launched Device Manager, selected the newly added "Unknown Device", right-clicked, selected Update Driver, and then navigated to the extracted folder and told Device Manager to look in there. As long as Device Manager can find at least a set of .INF and .SYS files, you may be lucky enough to get the basics working. I know (for example) my scanner has some fancy software, but I really don't need/want it, and as long as Paint.NET sees there's an "Imaging Device" (which was enabled by installing the driver), it can perform the scan and everybody's happy (well, myself primarily, I don't care if the manufacturer doesn't get to spy on what it is I just scanned)... YMMV. But yes, I agree that requiring to have some account and being online to use some piece of hardware that is completely unrelated to networking (for one) deserves a return / refund. I also have a printer where this approach didn't work. I gave in and installed the full software, but in a VM that is dedicated to using that printer. It's spending 99.99% of its time turned off, so there's no software needlessly wasting resources and connecting all the time to who-knows-what.
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We use Cannon at home. This thing prints/scans with one klick from everywhere - iOS, Windows, Android. I think if I just give it a kick, it will start printing...something. In fact, I'm convinced this printer is like the semi's brakes - the default state is printing, it needs power and software to hold it from printing.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
I have a Canon multi-function unit at home and I like it a lot. One nice thing I found is third party ink is available for it at very inexpensive prices. I think I paid $20 for five sets of cartridges which is considerably better than 40 or 50 for one set from Canon.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I completely despise HP. A few employers ago they were our biggest customer and they quickly become the worst customer I have ever had to deal with, EVER! They gave us documents on all procedures we had to follow that filled up an entire bookshelf and the best part about them was they didn't follow them yet they were supposed to. I won't even get start on the incompetence I had to deal with. Anyway, they were so bad that I vowed to never buy anything from them ever again and I haven't. FWIW, one of the their systems I worked on built inkjet cartridges. It used the most ridiculous application framework I have seen in my entire career. It was absolutely disgusting to work with. Apparently it was someone's master's degree thesis and I can't believe it survived a defense. Had I been on that board I would have rejected it entirely. I hold it and its advocates in very low regard. If any of you are reading this, I MEAN IT!
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Another example of stupidity, although in a very different area: I am certainly not a 'prepper' of the kind that they make TV stories about, I just want to be somewhat prepared for eventualities. So I wanted a gas stove, in case we have a power blackout. 99.99% of all cooking stoves in Norway are electric, so it makes me slightly eccentric, but a few of my friends are gourmets insisting that gas burners are superior. I settled for a model for my remodeled kitchen. At the very last moment, reading its online instruction booklet, I discovered that this stove had a 'security system' that would close all gas valves in case of a power blackout. There is no way to override this (I have that in writing from the manufacturer). So when you really need a gas stove because of a blackout, it won't work. It is totally dependent on household electric power. I found an alternative. On my request, the manufacturer has provided a clear statement that in case of a blackout, the stove will still work, although not with the electrical ignition - I will have to lit the fire with a spark igniter. That is perfectly fine with me - I always used spark igniters on camping/cottage gas stoves. (This second alternative also solved another problem. In Norway, all your friends - except for the gourmets - will run you down: 'You are crazy, not going for an induction top! It is just sooooo much better!' The solution I ended up with was a half-with, two-burners gas stove for the power fallouts and for my gourmet friends, and a half-width induction stove for all the other friends of mine ... It is not just for my friends: I bought it with a cast iron grill unit that I can put on the most powerful induction zone, for grilling my steaks!)
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I have a Canon multi-function unit at home and I like it a lot. One nice thing I found is third party ink is available for it at very inexpensive prices. I think I paid $20 for five sets of cartridges which is considerably better than 40 or 50 for one set from Canon.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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We use Cannon at home. This thing prints/scans with one klick from everywhere - iOS, Windows, Android. I think if I just give it a kick, it will start printing...something. In fact, I'm convinced this printer is like the semi's brakes - the default state is printing, it needs power and software to hold it from printing.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Once I get the initiative to pick up my old amateur photography hobby (getting that activity running is the big problem!), I will look for an upper-middle-class photo printer. A3 size is minimum - preferably continuous paper roll. Epson is a good name in photo printers, and a couple of my friends have bought smaller Epson models where you can refill the printer's cartridges from large bottles - and it is 'original' ink! They are very satisfied - the per-copy ink cost is significantly below other alternatives. The only disadvantage: Don't spell the ink from the bottle on anything. It is impossible to wash off. If you get it on your fingertips, you must scrub your fingers with harsh soap for a week, until the cells of your fingertips has been replaced by new cells from below. This doesn't scare me. Both cost concerns and the reputation for quality points to Epson as the provider of my next printer. AND: I have checked out - the Epson printer series works perfectly fine without a network connection. (Unless things have changed over the last six months.)
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There's been instances where I've successfully extracted the installer content to a folder on disk. With that available, instead of running the setup.exe or whatever bootstrap process installs the whole thing, I just launched Device Manager, selected the newly added "Unknown Device", right-clicked, selected Update Driver, and then navigated to the extracted folder and told Device Manager to look in there. As long as Device Manager can find at least a set of .INF and .SYS files, you may be lucky enough to get the basics working. I know (for example) my scanner has some fancy software, but I really don't need/want it, and as long as Paint.NET sees there's an "Imaging Device" (which was enabled by installing the driver), it can perform the scan and everybody's happy (well, myself primarily, I don't care if the manufacturer doesn't get to spy on what it is I just scanned)... YMMV. But yes, I agree that requiring to have some account and being online to use some piece of hardware that is completely unrelated to networking (for one) deserves a return / refund. I also have a printer where this approach didn't work. I gave in and installed the full software, but in a VM that is dedicated to using that printer. It's spending 99.99% of its time turned off, so there's no software needlessly wasting resources and connecting all the time to who-knows-what.
I have a couple of scrub machines around, I'll give that a try. HP must be injecting itself into the print spooler some how.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Another example of stupidity, although in a very different area: I am certainly not a 'prepper' of the kind that they make TV stories about, I just want to be somewhat prepared for eventualities. So I wanted a gas stove, in case we have a power blackout. 99.99% of all cooking stoves in Norway are electric, so it makes me slightly eccentric, but a few of my friends are gourmets insisting that gas burners are superior. I settled for a model for my remodeled kitchen. At the very last moment, reading its online instruction booklet, I discovered that this stove had a 'security system' that would close all gas valves in case of a power blackout. There is no way to override this (I have that in writing from the manufacturer). So when you really need a gas stove because of a blackout, it won't work. It is totally dependent on household electric power. I found an alternative. On my request, the manufacturer has provided a clear statement that in case of a blackout, the stove will still work, although not with the electrical ignition - I will have to lit the fire with a spark igniter. That is perfectly fine with me - I always used spark igniters on camping/cottage gas stoves. (This second alternative also solved another problem. In Norway, all your friends - except for the gourmets - will run you down: 'You are crazy, not going for an induction top! It is just sooooo much better!' The solution I ended up with was a half-with, two-burners gas stove for the power fallouts and for my gourmet friends, and a half-width induction stove for all the other friends of mine ... It is not just for my friends: I bought it with a cast iron grill unit that I can put on the most powerful induction zone, for grilling my steaks!)
Oh man, I get you. Here in America, most of the houses could have been designed by 5 yos. Whatever you can slap together in 30 days, and if we slide enough cash to the "inspectors"... My biggest beef is that there are no real range vents. If the vent over the stove sends the air back into the kitchen, it's a joke. So, when we decided to redo the kitchen, there were two non-negotiables. I wanted a gas range and I wanted a REAL range vent. I paid for both. And we are foodies, sorry, electric/induction is cute but it just does not cut it. But about your stove. Why the heck would a gas stove need to have electricity (looking at mine now)? Sure it has electronic ignition, but :) wait one...... well crap, I need to go turn off a breaker - I'll have to test it later. The only reason we have electronic ignition is to avoid pilot lights. But seriously, friends shaming you for cooking on gas? Stop feeding them. ;P tell them the induction part is broken.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Try to install a "wired" HP printer from a wireless laptop and you'll get even more frustrated.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Having to be online to use an HP printer immediately disqualified them from consideration when we were looking for a new printer. That design decision is totally unjustifiable.
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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
From what I can tell HP no longer develops the printers they sell. I believe their model is to provide generic software built around a set of so-called standards. Printer mechanism OEM's then provide the hardware, HP smacks a label on the CMYK-spewing abortion, and sells the result. HP gets a cut. The last couple of HP printer's I've purchased function adequately without installing the HP software crap, so I haven't. That thin, high-pitched whine you hear reverberating in the background is from Bill Hewlett and David Packard spinning in their graves.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
charlieg wrote:
who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection.
This is why I refuse to replace my wonderful, ancient, HP inkjet with a newer model. Sadly, any printer manufacturers seem to be going this route. The whole automatic re-ordering of ink is another thing that annoys me.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Maybe this will help? [Can't use the printer without Internet - HP Support Community - 8215620](https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Wireless-Networking-Internet/Can-t-use-the-printer-without-Internet/td-p/8215620) I share your sentiment though - it should just work without an internet connection.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
You are so right, Charlie. HP was the premier provider of equipment and services when I was designing test systems for the DoD, along with Tektronix. As quality providers, neither still exists so far as I can tell.
Will Rogers never met me.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Exactly the same WTF I had a couple of days ago. You can bypass it with the windows integrated scan software, but still.
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HP. Yes Hewlett Packard who has decided you cannot using what you just bought without an online account _and_ an internet connection. Imagine - you need to scan a document. The laptop is 10' away from the printer. I have to login to an account to be able to scan. wtf? And their s/w is absolutely terrible. They call it HP Smart but it's really HP dumb, clearly designed by a bunch of monkeys beating on keyboards with bananas. Apologies to monkeys everywhere. I should not drag them down to HP's level.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
My sympathies, it sounds like a total pain. And apologies might be due to bananas also, yes? x
Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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From what I can tell HP no longer develops the printers they sell. I believe their model is to provide generic software built around a set of so-called standards. Printer mechanism OEM's then provide the hardware, HP smacks a label on the CMYK-spewing abortion, and sells the result. HP gets a cut. The last couple of HP printer's I've purchased function adequately without installing the HP software crap, so I haven't. That thin, high-pitched whine you hear reverberating in the background is from Bill Hewlett and David Packard spinning in their graves.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
The last couple of HP printer's I've purchased function adequately without installing the HP software crap, so I haven't.
That worked for me for a while but then it realised and installed PrintSmart (or whatever it is called) itself. Then everything stopped working, had to uninstall and re-install. It then failed to install wirelessly so I ran a cable to it and now the PC sees the printer twice and I can print either way, even though it claimed not to have installed the wireless version. Oh, and the printing software occasionally tries to re-install itself and for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, I have one desktop icon for scanning mode and another one that accesses printing and scanning .... And when it does re-install itself it changes some print settings that disable double sided printing and I have to go deep into Windows settings to change something to re-enable it. But apart from that, it's great.
