Win 7 driver needed for brother hl-1230 printer

[knockvale]

Brother UK tell me they have no plans for providing a driver for this printer, which runs under XP, which means I am going to have to junk it and also a HP Scanjet 4370. Any solutions? There must be millions of such devices heading for the junkyard simply because of the success of Win 7

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Don't junk your printer
Run a Virtual XP machine --your printer will still work.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[knockvale]

Hi there
Don't junk your printer
Run a Virtual XP machine --your printer will still work.

Cheers
jimbo

Tks Jimbo, but I'm no expert on Windows. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium and was using the "lowest" (ie home version) of XP, so how do I set up a virtual XP machine?

Tks

Knockvale

 

[arubin]

I have set up a Brother HL-1230 on Windows 7 successfully.

Download the vista drivers from the Brother website. Unzip them and when you come to install the printer browse to where you have unzipped the drivers

 

[alphanumeric]

The vista drivers didn't work for me. I was getting lots of blank pages and pages with one line of text on them. I'm printing through the USB port on my D-Link router though so it could be a Shareport problem. It prints fine from an XP PC through Shareport though? I haven't tried printing directly from my PC with windows 7 so I would be interested in knowing if the vista drivers work for you.

 

[arubin]

I had set up the printer for someone else. Their PC does not have a parallel port so I had to use a USB-centronics cable. The test page printed out fine and we then printed out a document which was fine and I have not heard that they have had any problems.

 

[echrada]

Brother UK tell me they have no plans for providing a driver for this printer, which runs under XP, which means I am going to have to junk it and also a HP Scanjet 4370. Any solutions? There must be millions of such devices heading for the junkyard simply because of the success of Win 7

Go to this page scroll down to the bottom of the page and find your printer and use the Vista driver

Windows Vista Support for Brother Printer/MFC/FAX/DCP

 

[alphanumeric]

I had set up the printer for someone else. Their PC does not have a parallel port so I had to use a USB-centronics cable. The test page printed out fine and we then printed out a document which was fine and I have not heard that they have had any problems.

OK, thanks for the feedback. I think my problem is with D-Links Shareport app. This printer gets used 90% of the time by my daughter for school work. Her main PC still has XP on it so she has no problem printing from there. She has a netbook with 7 on it but I told her not to print from that. It would have been nice but its not the end of the world that she can't print from the netbook. I was given the printer and will likely just replace it when it runs out of toner. The new printer will be network friendly so I don't have to use Shareport.

 

[spam]

I have set up a Brother HL-1230 on Windows 7 successfully.

Download the vista drivers from the Brother website. Unzip them and when you come to install the printer browse to where you have unzipped the drivers

Hi. I'm no expert. I have a new PC with Windows 7 (64). I purchased a parallel cable to usb adapter. My PC can see my printer and refers to it as an unspecified device (IEEE-1284 Controller).

I went to the Brother site and downloaded the HL-1230 driver (Vista 64 version) as suggested. I can see the zipped folder in my downloads folder. When I unzip it, they go to : C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp

When I attempt to "follow this path", I can't find it.

I then unzippefd the folder to my desktop. However, none of the files appear to download a driver when I double-click on them.

Please help, I'm getting extremely frustrated. Sorry if I sound like a right amateur.

Spam

 

[alphanumeric]

There is no executable file but if you use the search for driver option and browse to the correct folder it should install.

 

[spam]

Thanks for the advice. Some sort of progress. I now have the driver loaded and can see HL-1230 Series printer icon in my printer / device folder (with an alert triangle - but troubleshoot has no solution).

However, my actual printer still shows as an unspecified device in my printer / device folder.

Test page doesn't print.

Am I close to a solution?

 

[spam]

Thanks. HL 1230 driver seems to have loaded and can see the icon in my list of printers. The actual printer stills shows as separate entity as unspecified item.

I looked at printer properties and unchecked it from LPT1 port and checked COM1, COM2, COM3, & COM4 ports (using parallel to usb adapter)

 

[alphanumeric]

Mine is also on a USB to centronics adapter. The port shows up as USB002, with a description of "Virtual printer port for USB". If would have been USB001 but my HP all in 1 used that port. One thing you could try is to right click the icon and select remove device. Then unplug and reinsert the USB cable for the printer. That will get you the new hardware detected and you can try installing it again.

 

[arubin]

As alphanumeric says, you need to install it to a virtual printer port for USB. Sorry I cannot be more specific. This was a PC belonging to someone else I was helping out.

 

[alphanumeric]

Also I believe that "Virtual USB Printer Port" gets installed during the printer install. When I installed my printer a generic icon titled USB Printer support or something came up first. I think it was at the bottom under "Undefined". After a couple of seconds the title and icon changed to Brother HL-1230 series and it moved to the "Printers and Faxes" section and the generic looking icon disappeared. I'd just start over, unplug the printers USB cable, remove the printer from the Printers and Faxes section, and anything else that you know shouldn't be there. Anything that is undefined or unknown. Reboot the PC and then plug the printer back in and see if it will install correctly. Windows can really be a pain when something half installs.