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robinhood42
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August 25th, 2007 03:00
HP Printer Software won't uninstall
Dimension 9100
Windows XP Pro SP2
1GB RAM
DVD RW and DVD Rom Drives
Floppy Drive
I have been trying to uninstall my printer driver for my HP 7760, but with no luck. I recently had a new hard drive installed because the previous one I had failed. As a result, I had to reinstall the OS from the ground up. I just finished installing most of the programs that I had before, and I wanted to reinstall the printer driver. I have done this many times before on other computers, but on this one it is extremely difficult. I hope there is someone out there that can help me. I am getting so frustrated.
I put the driver in the disk tray and installed the driver. I did exactly like it said and didn't hook up the printer until I was supposed to. This driver that I have is old. I knew once I finished installing it, I would have to go on HP's website to get updates. But for some reason, after I installed the driver and went to the HP update and driver download website, the pc asked for the disk again. I put it in the tray and it once again tried to reinstall the driver that had had just been installed. So I took the disk out of the tray and on the HP website tried to download the update, but the computer kept on asking for the original installation disk. This went on for about an hour. Actually I have spent all night trying to install a printer driver. I uninstalled the driver and wanted to do a clean install. The computer wouldn't let me do it. It kept on going in circles. Either telling me that the software was already on the computer or asking me to put the original disk back in the tray. I am really frustrated at this point. I even did a search to see if all the HP files were deleted before I tried to reboot the computer and start from scratch. No such luck. Can someone please help me?
What is the correct way of installing a driver, especially a printer driver? Should I be disconnected from the internet first? I know that most of the programs in the system tray should be closed, which I have done. But I'm getting nowhere.
This is how I normally install a driver:
1. Close all programs
2. Shut off Norton AV
3. Usually unplug the ethernet plug. I have a broadband connection to the internet.
4. Install driver or reinstall driver
5. Make sure everything is working
6. Get updates as needed
But for some reason this computer will not let me completely uninstall the printer driver. The printer I have is about 3 years old. Even when I do install the printer driver, whenever I try to update it, that is when I have the problems. Is the driver disk supposed to always be in the tray?
Because I have a new hard drive due to the other one failing, I don't have any of Dell's software. I lost all of that. And spent the better part of the last two days reinstalling the OS. I thought I had things fixed but now I can't get the driver for the printer to install correctly.
I really do need some help with this. I've been fighting with the printer for what seems forever. When you know a driver is out of date, should it be installed anyway and then go to the website and get the updates? That is what I have been trying to do, with no success.
Would it hurt to do one more clean install and start from scratch again and reinstall the OS? I lost the partition and Dell software when the other hard drive died and this new one was put in. I just need to find out why the files stay on the hard drive even though I delete them? I thought I thoroughly deleted the driver. This has been a nighmare and help is really appreciated. I hope I explained things clearly.
Every time when I think I have uninstalled the driver, I will reboot the computer and when it goes into Windows and I put the driver in the tray to run it, I get a message saying the driver is already installed, but I get no icons on the desktop. When I am on the HP website and that site is updating the driver, I will get a message to put the old driver in the try and then it will try and reinstall the old driver while at the same time trying to download the new update.
Could this be a hardware problem? In the system tray I got that small green box icon. I think it has to do with CPU usage. I have 1 GB of ram. Shouldn't that be enough? I would be very greatful for any help to solve this problem.
robinhood42
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Posted August 26th, 2007 00:00
Hi Fireberd,Sometimes I think computers are more trouble than they are worth. I finally fixed the printer driver by going online to hp and downloading the driver. I never knew before that when a driver had to be updated, you could just go to the website and download it. It also fixed a lot of problems. I always thought that when you reinstalled a driver, you installed the old driver first and then updated it. Well, I guess I know better now. I get so frustrated sometimes. Just when things are going good, something happens. The pc was running fine for 2 years, until the hard drive died. Dell sent a Western Digital and had a tech install it. Reinstalling the OS was so time consuming. Not difficult, just time consuming.I tried twice to download the chipset driver link you sent. It downloaded the driver but when it started to install, it stopped installing the rest of the files halfway through. So I had to press CTRL ALT DEL to get back into windows. Hope I didn't mess things up. When I downloaded it, I clicked on Run. Then I noticed it said to save the file to the desktop and run it from there. I hope I didn't make another mess of things. Now I'm going to see if I can straighten things out.Robinrobinhood42
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Posted August 26th, 2007 01:00
This time I downloaded it to the desktop and then clicked on Run and it finally fully installed. My files are so messed up I may end up doing a clean install. Dell just sent me some disks and the OS disk is dated 2007, so it's new. Maybe that will help. Before I had to reinstall everything, I noticed there were two audio drivers on this pc. One was the Sound Blaster and the other one was a Legacy, I think. All I know is that there were two icons in the system tray for sound. I don't know if it is supposed to be like that or not.When doing a clean install, should everything in the back of the pc be unplugged except for the monitor, mouse, and keyboard and sound speakers? Some people tell me you can keep everything plugged in when doing a clean install, but I would think that it would interfer with the installation. I was told I could even keep my internet connection plugged in, but again, I don't know how true that is either. I'm seriously thinking of starting from scratch again. I know there are tons of lost or orphaned files from all the mistakes I made when installing the OS. Of course with this new HD I also lost all of Dell's sofware, and I can't seem to find it on their website. I know at one time I was able to download it. Is that option still available? I also noticed that Dell changed their website around, making it a little more difficult to find things. I knew they had redone the site, but I really didn't pay much attention to it until now, when I needed it. Dell also sent me a Resource CD. I'm wondering if the drivers on that disk are newer than that Dell has for downloads? When I downloaded the chipset for the third and last time, it asked me if I wanted to overwrite the files, and I said yes.- Hello guys! I've encountered the same problem as yours and what I did is that I created another copy of the printer driver then just change the port to copy 1 so it won't have conflict with the other printer because even if you uninstall it the traces of your HP printer will still be there. Or if you don't want another copy the fastest way is to Reinstall your operating system. I haven't tried the regcleaner but you can also try that first before reinstalling windows. But I'm pretty sure that the no. 1 solution will work. =) Good luck.
robinhood42
2 Intern
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1154 Posts
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Posted August 26th, 2007 02:00
How I finally resolved my printer problem after trying for countless hours to get the driver to install, was to go to the hp website and find the driver for my printer. After I found it I downloaded it. Then installed it. The install program also had a nifty feature that recognized that the driver I installed wasn't installed correctly, so it fixed the problem while downloading and installing the driver. I thought when I deleted the driver off the hard drive the first time I had gotten all traces of it off my computer. But I guess there will always be files left. I'd love to find a good program that can delete old and orphaned files and fix Registry problems. The programs they have out now make us decide which Registry files to delete, and I'm not sure so I leave it alone. I was at the point of doing a totally clean reinstall again to solve the problem. Also, I learned that when the hard drive goes and you need to install a driver that you know is old, like mine which was made in 2004, it's easier to go to the website and download the driver instead of installing the old driver and updating it from that. It's a nightmare doing it that way.Also, you can go into control panel, add/remove programs and find the program you are looking for and click on it. Don't delete it because sometimes it gives you an option to repair a program. It repaired my scanner software for me without having to install that twice.Why can't they just make computers more hassle free? I was fighting with mine for 2 days.Oh, and if you have an HP Printer like I do, the software can conflict with IE7. There are fixes for that on the HP site. That was another problem I had to deal with.The reason I stay away from the Reg Cleaners now is because some are too thorough and delete everything, while others don't delete enough bad files.
Message Edited by robinhood42 on 08-25-2007 10:49 PM
fireberd
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Posted August 25th, 2007 17:00