Category - Computers & Tech

When I first installed RC1, I had a few problems getting my HP Deskjet 1220C to run. The drivers wouldn’t install from disk.

Windows 7: Deskjet 1220C Installed

After reading some complete rubbish about how this printer isn’t supported – some of it on Microsoft’s own forums by people it elevates to MVP – I discovered that it IS supported.

Windows 7 will automatically install 1220C drivers when you plug in/turn on the printer. You do not need any extra software or drivers for the 1220c. Support is built right in to Windows 7.

The graphic here shows the 1220C installed and ready to go on my clean install of the commercial version of Windows 7 Ultimate. I can assure you it is printing perfectly.

It never ceases to amaze me how much bad information gets spread on the Internet. People say something, defend it, then evidence arises that totally contradicts their original statement… and they still defend it! You really do wonder what planet they are on sometimes.

Anyone listening to the idiot who claimed the 1220C wasn’t supported – and who also defended that claim vehemently – could have gone out and spent another £100+ on a printer unnecessarily.

EDIT 2/12/09: I’m getting a lot of hits for this post – I’d be interested to hear from people about whether it helped them or not. Did you get your printer working after reading this? What problems had you had which made you search for it? You can use the contact form .

EDIT 08/07/2010: I’m still getting a lot of hits for this post. I should also point out that when I installed the commercial version of Windows 7 Ultimate, my printer worked perfectly first time. Any problems I had with RC1 seem to have been specifically to do with RC1, and not Windows itself.

I thought I’d added this, but I can’t find it. I’ve commented recently about the Windows 7 drivers (or lack thereof) for my new HP Scanjet G4010 , and how I got round the problem by using W7’s XP Mode.

I was angry that HP had apparently programmed the installer not to work on anything other than Vista or earlier, but had told me via Tech Support that W7 drivers would be released once W7 was itself released. Well, on the day W7 was released I checked HP’s site and it had definitely been updated. There was a link to ‘how to get W7 drivers’ but nothing downloadable at the end of it, and nothing of any use from a technical perspective.

I can’t remember what made me do it – or even what it was exactly that I did – but without downloading anything at all, the drivers now install. The scanner works under W7.

On the one hand, I am happy. But I don’t like how HP did this, or what they apparently did to unlock the installer. I mean, what DID they do? I didn’t authorise any download, but something obviously got through.

EDIT 06/11/2009: I’m noticing a few hits for this. If this post helps anyone, could you drop me a line using the Contact Form to let me know?

One thing I will point out is that although the scanner works, the toolbox which contains the OCR software doesn’t. However, take a look at this link for SimpleOCR – a freeware OCR program.

I’m waiting for my copy of W7 Ultimate to arrive, and when it does I’ll be doing a clean install on my Vista partition. If anyone is having trouble with their G4010 scanner, I will check out what I do for them and post back here.

EDIT 13/11/09: I’m still getting hits for this. Note that the HP website says that the G4010 is definitely on the list referred to by the following:

The following list of scanners already have, or will soon have, full software support for Microsoft Windows 7. The Microsoft Windows 7 solution can be found either in the CD shipped with the scanner or at the HP support web site (www.hp.com/support)…

So stop worrying and wait… THEY DON’T YET EXIST, SO STOP KEEP LOOKING AND DON’T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING EXCEPT FROM HP!

EDIT 21/11/09: Just to point out that mine has stopped working even under Virtual XP. My PC just tells me the scanner isn’t connected or there is a problem. If you connect it under W7 you are likely to get a Blue Screen.

FOR THE HARD OF HEARING: THE G4010 DOESN’T WORK WITH WINDOWS 7 BUT HP IS SUPPOSED TO BE PRODUCING DRIVERS.

EDIT 2/12/09: Let me also clarify that SimpleOCR does not magically make the scanner work under Windows 7. The G4010 does not have W7 drivers, yet. Period. I mentioned SimpleOCR because it DID work for me whilst the scanner was functioning under Virtual XP. Seeing as it doesn’t anymore, SimpleOCR is just a separate piece of software.

EDIT 19/1/2010: There is an updated post detailing a possible workaround here .

EDIT 28/02/2010: For anyone too lazy to search properly, drivers are now available and mentioned in this post .

EDIT 21/06/2010: This post is proving very popular. Someone just found it on the search term “how to use ocr in hp g4010 scanners”. It’s easy – if you have installed the W7 drivers from HP which I linked to above.

Make sure the scanner is turned on and connected, open the HP Solution Center, then click “Scan Document”. You can then select from a list of different file types from TIF, through PDF and email, RTF and Word, all the way down to lowly WordPad. Then click “scan”. The rest is self-explanatory.

A few months ago I bought a new scanner – an HP G4010. At this time I was using Vista Ultimate (64-bit).

Windows 7 is still unreleased, so anyone installing it needs to be aware that it isn’t yet the full package – and that is especially true of drivers. There are few third party W7 drivers available at the moment – Hewlett Packard informed me that a W7 driver for the G4010  is on the way, but it isn’t available yet.

Now, so far I’ve not had a problem with many drivers or other software. Most of the Vista stuff installs and runs perfectly on W7 , with a few exceptions (but betas are often available). One piece of software I am very annoyed with is Raxco’s PerfectDisk 2008 . Unlike most software, this one is deliberately programmed only to install under Vista so even if it worked under W7 (which is quite possible, since W7 is based on Vista anyway), it is deliberately prevented from installing. In other words, you are forced to upgrade – and I consider that to be a rip-off, even if upgrading is only $19.99.

I was a little annoyed to find that HP’s installer for the G4010 also wouldn’t run at all. No error – it is just deliberately prevented from running on anything other than XP or Vista . I’ve since had a fiddle with W7 and it appears that the drivers wouldn’t work even if they would install, so I’ll have to wait until the full W7 release before HP releases specific drivers.

But this is where W7’s XP Mode comes into its own. The XP drivers install perfectly on the Virtual Machine and the scanner is up and running again. So for the time being, if I need to scan or do OCR, I can do it in Virtual XP and immediately switch to W7 to use the files produced.

Windows 7 is fast and extremely versatile.

EDIT 18/6/2012: This article was written in 2009, and the spec for my machine then was fairly decent. Now, it’s pathetically out-dated. I am just spec’ing up a new machine which I intend to build during the next month or so.

I’ve been using the evaluation version of Windows 7 and I’ve got to say it is incredibly stable, based on my own experiences. But I’ve just installed the XP Mode functionality, and I’m blown away.

One piece of software I regret losing (unless I use my old XP system) is Flash MX . I had regularly upgraded my version of Flash, but when Adobe took over Macromedia , it simply became impossible to justify the cost. In keeping with Adobe’s pricing policy, I would have had to hand over close to £400, 4 pints of blood, and probably both kidneys in order to upgrade any further. And when Vista came along, Flash MX ceased to work.

But anyway, I was aware of the so-called ‘XP Mode’ that Windows 7 was going to contain. So I downloaded and installed the necessary files from Microsoft’s site. Installation was very quick – this is something I have noticed with Windows 7 : it is very fast compared with Vista.

Flash MX installed first time and it works like a dream. XP Mode obviously isn’t as fast as plain old XP on a dedicated machine (it is a virtual machine), but it is perfectly usable.

You need to have a decent spec for your PC to get the best out of it. Mine’s running a quad core processor with 4GB RAM, and has a 8800 GTS video card – but as long as your processor can handle VT functionality you should be OK.

Microsoft was doing a special offer until recently, where you could pre-order Windows 7 Professional for £99.99. The email they sent me suggested Windows 7 Ultimate would only be available to OEM builders. However, it turns out that you can pre-order Ultimate for £199.99 or delivery October 22. I’ve put my order in already – I’m glad I missed that special offer deadline, as I was going to pre-order the Pro version.

In Europe, Windows 7 is shipping without Internet Explorer – the E version – and there’s also a version without Windows Media Player – the N version. Bloody stupid EU!

I want a PC I can use, not one I can boast about having Linux on to my idiot mates.

EDIT 30/09/2009: I’ve noticed a few people searching for the preorder deadline . Microsoft did offer a special price if you preordered before a certain date, but this expired in early August. I missed it myself, but I am glad I did – the offer was only for the basic and professional editions, as I was given to believe that the Ultimate edition would only be available to system builders. It turns out you WILL be able to buy the Ultimate edition.

I have preordered mine, and it is due for delivery on or after 22 October 2009 (the release date). You can preorder the other versions too (click here for the Microsft order page (out of date) or here for the (cheaper) Amazon page (out of date)) – but not with any special pricing that I am aware of. The Ultimate edition is priced at just under £200.

EDIT 18/4/2011: Just for completeness, I am using XP mode on my Windows 7 Ultimate system (and have been since Windows 7 was launched) and it is incredible.

OK. So I switched my phone provider from BT to Virgin and, as a result, I do not have an extension upstairs. I needed to send a fax urgently from my PC so I started looking around for something which would let me do it.

Initially I tried using a DECT transmitter to get a signal upstairs, and although it worked fine for sending the fax it would simply not ring the phones on any incoming call. So I had to do away with it, even though it was really a great piece of kit… on paper, anyway.

The fact I hadn’t got a fax system was eating me up, so I thought that there simply must be something for Skype . Surprisingly little, as it happens – at least if you are thinking free or cheap.

I found something called PamFax. Looks the business, and I just needed to send another fax so I fired it up. The pay-as-you-go option costs something like € 0.14 per page (allegedly – see below), charged to your Skype account, and that’s not too bad… are you ready for this?

I scanned in my document, and after PamFax refusing to send it because it couldn’t count the number of pages in the PDF file I’d created, I downloaded some freeware which converts PDF to DOC files. So I fired up Word 2007 and tried again.

I was informed that the number I was sending the fax to (an 0870 number) was “either slow or a mobile/business number” so the cost was “adjusted slightly”.

My heart spontaneously began beating again when I realised there was a “cancel” button… but it had stopped shortly after I read ” the new charge will be €33.43 “.

Yep. The price was going to jump from 14 cents up to nearly 34 Euros – 240 times the original price . No excuse for this whatsoever and it is a total rip-off – I can call that 0870 landline number from Skype for a standard rate, and fax using a normal fax system for the same rate on a landline.

PamFax is going to be saying hello to Mr Recycle Bin later tonight. I thought I’d found something decent, but I was sadly mistaken – don’t fall for this and be aware of it if you install PamFax .

Now, if it kills me I’m going to figure out how to use my smartphone as a modem.

EDIT: As it happens, PamFax and Mr Recycle Bin didn’t get on too well (it wouldn’t uninstall cleanly). I had to get rid of most of it by editing the Registry directly. Pile of garbage, it is.

EDIT 02/05/2010: Just for the record, I installed Sky HD in an upstairs room and part of the agreement is that I have to have it connected to a phone line for the first 12 months (I don’t have an issue with that – the only problem was: NO PHONE LINE UPSTAIRS).

Now, it would cost close to £100 to have an extension fitted, so I returned to the idea of the DECT transmitter sold by Maplin . This time, though, instead of connecting the downstairs phone to the base unit, I just used a splitter on the main socket and plugged the phone into one side and the DECT unit to the other. It works perfectly, so I have a phone line I can use for faxes near my PC now.

EDIT 29/12/2011: I noticed someone found this page using “can you use PamFax to send a fax to an 0870 number”. In summary, yes you can – but when I tried it, it tried to bill me €33.43. That’s over £30 (or nearly $50) for a single page in my case (at current exchange rates).

Take my advice, DO NOT USE PAMFAX – IT IS A RIP-OFF. You would not know how much it was billing you unless you sat and watched every fax it sent. And £30 per page is criminal.