26 February 2010 | Uncategorized | kimm

In my household are four printers, each of which is networked to allow three different computers in the house to access them. For everyday color printing and basic photo printing, there’s an HP Photosmart 3210 color inkjet printer. For everyday black and white printing, we have a Brother HL-2170W laser printer. Fine art printing is done with an HP Photosmart Pro B9180 from one computer only and the “office” type printer is an HP Photosmart C7280 All-In-One, also accessible from only one computer. The oldest of these is the Photosmart 3210 purchased in September 2006.

Two of the computers ran Vista and two were still running XP. With all of the good things that I had heard about Windows 7, I thought that an upgrade for all of the computers made sense. All of the installs actually went fairly painlessly, but one of my biggest concerns was making sure that all of my networked printers were still accessible.

I did research before the OS installs and discovered that as of the release date of Windows 7, there were updated drivers available from HP and Brother for all of our printers. The updated drivers were bundled with Windows 7, available through Microsoft Update or could be downloaded directly from HP and Brother.

So how did it go? After all OS installs, here’s what happened, including my grading of ease of installation from a 1=Horrible to 10=Flawless:

The Brother HL-2170W printer, connected over a wireless network, was usable from all computers right out of the chute. No muss, no fuss. I believe the drivers were on the Windows 7 disc and there were absolutely no problems associated with using the printer afterward including the “manual duplexing” option. I was actually very surprised, and pleased, that the Brother printer worked that well.

Ease of migration = 10

The HP Photosmart C7280, also connected wirelessly, worked flawlessly immediately. It is only usable from one computer, a laptop which was running Vista with which I use the HP Solutions Center software extensively for scanning documents using the automatic document feeder. As any student of HP printer software knows, installing an HP printer driver typically brings along another 600MB of additional software. In some cases, it’s OK, but in others it can be useless, buggy or just plain junk. I found the HP Solutions Center for this printer to be rock solid on Vista, do I was a little worried that it wouldn’t easily transfer to Windows 7. Again, I was very pleased that not only new versions of drivers were installed, but also a new version of HP Solutions Center.

Ease of migration = 10

The Photosmart Pro B9180, connected over a wired network, is used for fine art printing from our desktop computer which was running XP. This printer uses pigment based inks to print on a wide variety of fine art papers and produces prints of stunning quality. I use Adobe Lightroom to manage my photography and printing to the printer also involves the use of ICC profiles for the different papers. After the OS install (a clean install of Windows 7 with migration assistance from PC Mover), the printer would print, but it had only a basic driver. I went to the HP website to download the Windows 7 version of the driver and installed it. I had a bit of a problem when the software wouldn’t detect the printer over the network, but a few adjustments fixed that. I reinstalled the ICC profiles for the papers I use and the printer was back to working beautifully from Lightroom.

Ease of migration = 7

The Photosmart 3210, also connected over a wired network, was another issue entirely. This printer is a print/scan/copy unit and, to be quite honest, its usability suffered under Windows XP because of the lousy quality of the HP software that came with it. Like the C7280, it also has HP Solutions Center to allow you to configure the actions of front panel buttons and to take advantage of special scanning, copying and printing options. However, the HP Solution Center for this printer was nothing less than horrible. The Solution Center would regularly “lose” the printer and claim that it was not connected. The actions of the front panel buttons would regularly be “lost” as well and wouldn’t activate the right software on the computer. I tried for several years to install updates, reinstall software and troubleshoot until I just gave up and stopped using some of the advanced features of the printer.

Under Windows 7, there was no difference. After the OS install, there was a basic driver installed, but I went to the HP web site to download the “full feature” driver and software. Suffice to say that over a two week period, I uninstalled and reinstalled five times, ran printer and network diagnostics and solicited the help of HP experts in their forums. At the end of that time, I decided that once again, I would abandon the use of the HP Solutions Center for this printer. Basic and photo printing worked just great, but none of the advanced features available through the Solution Center work. Ease of migration was a 1 for advanced features, but a 10 if all you wanted to do was print.

Ease of migration = 1 for advanced printing, 10 for basic printing

On a side note, I found out shortly thereafter that Windows 7 Home Premium includes the Windows Fax & Scan application. It works flawlessly to allow you to scan documents on the printer and then save or fax them. It always “finds” the printer, where the HP Solution Center insists that there is not a Photosmart 3210 on the network! Go figure.

Oh, and for anyone still sitting on the fence about upgrading from Vista or XP to Windows 7, I say Just Do It. There’s nothing to think about. The reliability and usability improvements made with Windows 7 are great. I especially like the Homegroup, which allows for easy sharing of content among all computers on the network. Quite simply, it just works.