Printer Driver Versions

rowanbradley · 16 Sep 2010

I have an Epson Stypus Photo 890 printer installed on a Vista desktop PC and shared. I network to it from a notebook PC which used to run Vista also. This all worked fine and I could print on the 890 printer from the notebook. I then updated the notebook to W7, and find I can't print. When I try to connect to the network printer it says "Windows cannot connect to the printer" and "Operation failed with error 0x00000057". If I connect the printer directly to the notebook I can install a driver and I can print - I just can't do it via the network.

I contacted Epson, and they initially said that they did not support W7 for this printer. But then I did some more research on their web site and it clearly says that the do support the 890 via an "inbox" or "in box" driver. So today I tried to contact them again, and this time they said that when doing this sort of thing, the printer must be attached to the newest PC. They claim this is a Microsoft requirement.

Needless to say I can't use my notebook PC as the print server, since it's not always there. And I can't upgrade the desktop to W7 without seriously annoying its users.

There must be some way round this. Can I:

load the W7 driver onto the Vista machine, so when I try to connect to the networked printer from my W7 notebook, the right driver is there to download?
manually install the correct driver on the W7 notebook, and somehow prevent it trying to download the driver from the Vista machine?
Connect directly to the printer in some different way, using a port number or similar?
Anything else?

Hope you can help!

Thanks - Rowan

Lemur · 16 Sep 2010

You could take a chance an find a new model of the Epson Stylus Photo 890 that has Win 7 drivers. It just might work.

Epson Stylus Photo 1400, Drivers & Downloads - Technical Support - Epson America, Inc.

rowanbradley · 16 Sep 2010

No - that's not the problem. I have a Windows 7 driver that works perfectly well with the Stylus Photo 890, when connected locally. But the problem is that Windows insists on downloading a driver from the server, which is running Vista, and has a Vista driver on it, which doesn't work on my W7 notebook.

All want to be able to do is to use the W7 driver on my notebook PC to control a printer which is attached to a Vista machine over the network.

How do I do this?

Thanks - Rowan

JDobbsy1987 · 16 Sep 2010

Hi rowanbradley,

Is this printer on a Workgroup network (e.g. at home) or on a Domain (e.g. at work)?

What version of Win 7 Pro are you running, 32 or 64 bit?

Regards,
JDobbsy1987

rowanbradley · 16 Sep 2010

It's on a home network, there is no domain controller, just these two PCs (plus occasional visitors) so I suppose it's a workgroup. On my notebook I'm running Windows 7 Pro 32-bit. On the desktop it's Vista Business (aslo 32 bit, if that's an option).

What difference do you think these things might make?

Thanks for your help - Rowan

JDobbsy1987 · 16 Sep 2010

The main reason i was asking is i had an issue with Win 7 64 bit machines at work (Domain) where by double clicking the printer on the network doesn't install drivers automatically (it fails) but if i add it as if it was a local printer and then select TCP/IP and enter the I.P. address of the printer it installs drivers fine although not sure why this works :)

If you know the I.P of the printer it may be worth a go.

rowanbradley · 16 Sep 2010

Thanks for this idea, but I'm not quite sure which IP number you mean.

The printer is a USB device, not an IP device, so it doesn't have an IP number of its own. The printer is actually connected to a Silex Ethernet to USB converter, which (I think) works as if the printer was directly plugged into the server PC's USB port. If the printer was directly plugged into a USB port, it would not have an IP address at all. I don't think giving it the IP address of the Silex box will help, because I imagine that this uses some sort of proprietary Silex protocol.

Do you mean the IP number of the server PC, or what?

Thanks - Rowan

JDobbsy1987 · 16 Sep 2010

I was thinking of it being connected to a network via Ethernet but i see you are connecting to another machine that is acting as a "Print Server"

Can you UNC on to the Vista machine from your notebook?
Start >> Run >> Type \\<Computer Name or I.P. address of Vista machine>\ >> Click OK/Press Enter.

Do you see the printer there? if yes, double click it and does it install/connect then?

rowanbradley · 17 Sep 2010

Yes, I can UNC onto the desktop machine, and I see the printer there. If double-click on it, it says "downloading driver", and then:
[Window Title]
Add Printer
[Main Instruction]
Connect to Printer
[Content]
Windows cannot connect to the printer.
[^] Hide details [OK]
[Expanded Information]
Operation failed with error 0x00000057.

I.e. this is the same behaviour as when I use Add Printer.

I need some way of either

Preventing it downloading the driver from the server, and making it just use the driver that I have previously installed on the client, or
Installing the W7 driver on the server so when the client requests a driver it downloads the correct one. Of course the server will have to continue to use the Vista driver

Any ideas?

Thanks - Rowan

Brainer · 27 Sep 2010

Rowanbradley:

Would you please be kind enough to share which driver you are using
that's working well for you and from exactly which source you obtained it.

I really need to be able to print to my Stylus 890 Photo in Windows 7 right now.

Thanks

Brainer