Has Microsoft replaced your OEM print driver yet???

gunrunnerjohn said:

I've had the Dymo printer for more than ten years, the new ones only work with overpriced Dymo brand labels, so I bought another of the LabelWriter 400 Turbo ones on eBay for $25 to have a spare. I'm not paying a couple hundred for a new label printer and then having to buy labels that are about 5x-6x the price of the perfectly good generic labels I've been using for years!

I can buy the genuine Dymo address labels for $15 for 500, or the identical 3rd party labels for $20 for 3500. Guess which option I pick?

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Now that you mentioned it, make sure to AVOID updating the printer firmware. If you see a relevant update in Windows Updates, DON'T install it, block it! It is a clever manufacturers' way to block third-party inks/toners! I have seen many cases that the printer will constantly display a warning that the ink/toner is not genuine and not print! Some buy cheap refurbished printers that use cheap third-party consumables. Then one day they fall in the trap to upgrade the firmware and the printer refuses to print with non-genuine consumables! The only cure is to find another third-party brand that can pass the genuine check. For toners you might be able to extract the chip from the original toner and put it on the new consumable but then you must reset the page count or the printer will think it's empty and won't print.

This thread kinda cracks me up a bit. Why is Microsoft responsible for making sure your decade old plus printer that was out of driver support for nearly as long, still works exactly as it did when new? Amazingly I am still using my 2009 Canon MP990. Fully functional with third party inks and even the scanner works in Windows. If you're aware of a printer that is using software or firmware updates to block using third party inks or toners, I seems to me the correct thing isn't to blame Windows, but refuse to buy printers from companies who do those things.

I did not blame Windows, I just took the opportunity to mention it. Unfortunately all major manufacturers do that. Microsoft's new IPP printing is just another trick to urge is upgrade our perfectly working printers. Thankfully there is still the option to disable it and use legacy drivers. If some time a future update removes it, I hope we will have a way to get it back using Winaero Tweaker or other workaround.

spapakons said:

I did not blame Windows, I just took the opportunity to mention it. Unfortunately all major manufacturers do that. Microsoft's new IPP printing is just another trick to urge is upgrade our perfectly working printers. Thankfully there is still the option to disable it and use legacy drivers. If some time a future update removes it, I hope we will have a way to get it back using Winaero Tweaker or other workaround.

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You're blaming Windows by claiming they are in a conspiracy with manufacturers to force you to upgrade your printers.

Conspiracy theorists see conspiracies wherever they look, I reckon. Kind of like the expression if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

The fact is that the spooler runs as System, and traditionally, it pulls in third-party code from a number of printer manufacturers, and sometimes that's chaos. On a good day, pulling in third-party code to a process like that is a no-no, security-wise.

Windows is moving to a model of where no third-party kernel/print-stack driver is required, so much less code from Jim-Bob's House of Printers runs in the path of printing documents. Also, when problems are found later in the common printing system, Microsoft can just patch that one common subsystem, and we don't have to wait for every Tom, Dick and Harry to patch their printer drivers.

Additional light reading...

HeavyHemi said:

You're blaming Windows by claiming they are in a conspiracy with manufacturers to force you to upgrade your printers.

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And your evidence that they aren't is?

spapakons said:

Microsoft's new IPP printing is just another trick to urge is upgrade our perfectly working printers.

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In point of fact, the IPP printing is forcing upgrades of printers if you want to enable it. Also, you lose many of the advanced features of even new printers that are compatible if you enable IPP, not exactly a win-win!

They might be. Are you sure they aren't?

Remember Windows Vista? Early adopters panicked and were buying new graphics cards with WDDM graphics drivers or even replaced their PC to have a Vista compliant machine. Let alone Vista is intentionally more resource demanding than XP and Windows 7. Later was revealed that older PCs could run Vista 32-bit fine (assuming they did not crawl) by using the Windows XP graphics drivers (XPDM mode). By that time most early adopters had already replaced their graphics cards or PCs.

Similarly Windows 11 official system requirements are for 8th generation Intel CPU or 2nd generation AMD Ryzen CPU, 4GB RAM, 64GB disk, UEFI firmware, TPM 2.0, Secure Boot and at least WDDM 3.0 graphics drivers. Real system requirements (if you bypass compatibility check) is any 64-bit CPU (21H2, 22H2, 23H2) or a 64-bit CPU with SSE4.2 (24H2, 25H2, 26H2), 2GB RAM, 50GB+ disk, Legacy BIOS or UEFI firmware with or without TPM or Secure Boot and any graphics card, even very old ones without WDDM drivers. In such case you get graphics with the generic Microsoft Basic Display Adapter driver (formerly known as Standard VGA graphics driver) which doesn't support hardware acceleration and the PC feels much slower. But at least it works (for experimental reasons, I wouldn't bare to use it every day, it would be very slow).

Given the above, why not believe that Microsoft also tries to boost printer sales by removing the option to use legacy printer drivers? Now you can decide, but what if some update removes this choice? I cannot tell for sure they are doing it, I don't have proof, but I suspect them doing it, I have signs.

pseymour said:

Windows is moving to a model of where no third-party kernel/print-stack driver is required, so much less code from Jim-Bob's House of Printers runs in the path of printing documents. Also, when problems are found later in the common printing system, Microsoft can just patch that one common subsystem, and we don't have to wait for every Tom, Dick and Harry to patch their printer drivers.

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If their lame IPP wasn't disabling many advanced printing options for modern printers, I might be more understanding. Alas, that's not what is happening!

gunrunnerjohn said:

If their lame IPP wasn't disabling many advanced printing options for modern printers, I might be more understanding. Alas, that's not what is happening!

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Again, the printer manufacturer is supposed to provide a PSA. It should be relatively straightforward to code, because the functionality should be in the existing old-fashioned driver. Just put that code in a PSA and test it. Printer manufacturers have known about this for a long time, so if it's not done, it's clear whose fault it is.

pseymour said:

Conspiracy theorists see conspiracies wherever they look, I reckon. Kind of like the expression if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

The fact is that the spooler runs as System, and traditionally, it pulls in third-party code from a number of printer manufacturers, and sometimes that's chaos. On a good day, pulling in third-party code to a process like that is a no-no, security-wise.

Windows is moving to a model of where no third-party kernel/print-stack driver is required, so much less code from Jim-Bob's House of Printers runs in the path of printing documents. Also, when problems are found later in the common printing system, Microsoft can just patch that one common subsystem, and we don't have to wait for every Tom, Dick and Harry to patch their printer drivers.

Additional light reading...

More information on Windows protected print mode for enterprises and developers

More information on Windows protected print mode for enterprises and developers

learn.microsoft.com

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My main concern is what happens with printer features. I want access to all print qualities, all supported paper types, envelopes, trays, staples, whatever. I don't want to miss anything. I don't like universal driver that fit all models. That's not true. Either the driver would be a huge file, much like nVidia drivers, for instance, or it will omit several features and just let you select color/B/W, plain/photo paper and other generic settings. Just a reasonable question: If our precious printer turns to be just a generic printer with a little better printing quality, then why spend much more money on it? We rarely print at the maximum quality. We mostly use the advanced features not available on cheaper models. Is Microsoft IPP printing driver going to provide access to all these features? I doubt it. Probably yes for a new printer, but for older models the manufacturers won't bother adding this compatibility. They want us ditch our old models and buy new, common sense. They will claim EOL. Hopefully sometime there will be a wrapper that can take the legacy driver and convert it to IPP, but I would not like to depend on that.

pseymour said:

Again, the printer manufacturer is supposed to provide a PSA. It should be relatively straightforward to code, because the functionality should be in the existing old-fashioned driver. Just put that code in a PSA and test it. Printer manufacturers have known about this for a long time, so if it's not done, it's clear whose fault it is.

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Yes, for NEW models that they wish to sell. For existing models they will simply claim EOL and won't bother.

pseymour said:

Again, the printer manufacturer is supposed to provide a PSA. It should be relatively straightforward to code, because the functionality should be in the existing old-fashioned driver. Just put that code in a PSA and test it. Printer manufacturers have known about this for a long time, so if it's not done, it's clear whose fault it is.

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Microsoft decided independently to obsolete all the printer drivers and they just throw the ball over the wall to dozens of printer manufacturers! Got it!

So we are going to use the legacy drivers while we still can. Hopefully if ever Microsoft removes legacy drivers option, Winaero or other fellow will add it back.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Microsoft decided independently to obsolete all the printer drivers and they just throw the ball over the wall to dozens of printer manufacturers! Got it!

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If by "independently" you mean with this group of companies, then yes, independently.

I know a lot of you barely glance at Brink's reposting of different Windows and PC product announcements.

WPP is a years-long effort between MS (who wanted to move printer support into an unified driver model) and the major printer companies. It didn't happen overnight, and some older printers were left behind.

If you're going to fault MS, blame them for trying to be aggressive about switching to the newer (secure) drivers, than checking if the printer OEM bothered to support all of the features of the older driver. All Windows knows is there's a new-style driver listed for XYZ printer, and it's not their job to know if that's a worse driver than before. That's the OEM's responsibility to own that piece.

Oh no! Unix-like operating systems did this a long time ago! That's Microsoft's fault also.

"After much discussion within Apple and OpenPrinting, we decided to deprecate support for raw queues with CUPS 2.2 in 2018 and printer drivers starting with CUPS 2.3 in 2019. We also decided to develop and maintain a collection of Printer Applications that support the printers still requiring printer driver software.

Printers supporting the various Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) 'driverless' printing standards will continue to function without change, with Printer Applications bridging the gap to older printers. Almost every printer manufactured since 2010 supports IPP/2.0 with standard file formats - the primary holdouts are industrial label printers and certain 'vertical market' printers."

XxXxX said:

i have MS IPP class drivers for our Brother MFC-L3710CW multi-function laser printer
thus far no problem and this printer is used for our home network printer.

best of luck Steve ..

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My experience with my Brother MCP-L3560CDW MFP is much the same. Running the IPP class MS driver for about 3 months since the last Windows 11 Pro clean install. I let Windows install all the drivers and apps for the MFP with no issues. Much simpler setup than using Brother's bloated software.

Exactly the term "unified" is what I don't like, because "unified" is another word for "generic". Yes, we may have no issues using IPP, but I would rather be as legacy as possible to avoid incompatibilities and inconvenience. And comparing that to Linux CUPS doesn't make it sound any better. Thankfully HP has its own proprietary Linux drivers and I would not have to rely on CUPS, if I want to use my printer on my Zorin OS or Mint virtual machine. Similarly I wouldn't like to rely on IPP printing drivers on Windows 11.

pseymour said:

Oh no! Unix-like operating systems did this a long time ago! That's Microsoft's fault also.

"After much discussion within Apple and OpenPrinting, we decided to deprecate support for raw queues with CUPS 2.2 in 2018 and printer drivers starting with CUPS 2.3 in 2019. We also decided to develop and maintain a collection of Printer Applications that support the printers still requiring printer driver software.

Printers supporting the various Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) 'driverless' printing standards will continue to function without change, with Printer Applications bridging the gap to older printers. Almost every printer manufactured since 2010 supports IPP/2.0 with standard file formats - the primary holdouts are industrial label printers and certain 'vertical market' printers."

Printer Applications and Printer Drivers

openprinting.github.io

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linux has been using IPP since the beginning of time. thats why i know that my printer works with IPP on Windows as i purchased the printer when running and using Linux so i had to check any hardware would work with Linux before i purchased any hardware especially printers. basic IPP is just fine for our needs.

best of luck Steve ..

spapakons said:

Exactly the term "unified" is what I don't like, because "unified" is another word for "generic".

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If your vendor doesn't provide a specific driver or better device support, then you get a generic device. Because it's a brand new printing model.

There's nothing wrong about IPP, if done correctly. Assuming you bought a brand new printer today, it would be correctly supported because the vendor actually spent time on the driver's features. For a legacy printer, your OEM may not be so generous with their time.

It's like Secure Boot. Everyone OEM knew what to do. A lot of them just decided they weren't going to bother with legacy PC's. That's not MS's fault for making it "difficult".