Rant HP Rant...

[Captante]

Meh, I already had an HP account. So when I bought a new printer this year, adding it to my HP account was ez using their HP smart software. Both print and scan working as normal so far.

It's not so much that you can't get new HP stuff to work .... after wasting time signing up for a worthless HP "account" (read: advertising source) and the massive download of HP-BLOAT gets finished installing a bunch of crap-ware on your machine when all you needed was a driver.

The LAST HP printer I bought was a small dedicated photo-printer for my now ex wife. (it was what she asked for) This was a good 10 years ago and EVEN THEN the "required" download was several GB's and was a total PITA to prevent it loading a bunch of resource-sucking garbage at startup.

 

[ch33zw1z]

It's not so much that you can't get new HP stuff to work .... after the massive download of HP-BLOAT gets finished installing a bunch of crap-ware on your machine when all you need is a driver.

The LAST HP printer I bought was a small dedicated photo-printer for my now ex wife. (it was what she asked for) This was a good 10 years ago and EVEN THEN the "required" download was several GB's and was a total PITA to prevent it loading a bunch of resource-sucking garbage at startup.

Dunno dude, I just put on the HP Smart app from the MS store. I typically say no t anything extra possible, and nothing else got installed. I can double check later.

IIRC, HP's website was not very explicit about this new process, so took me a bit to uncover.

 

[Captante]

Dunno dude, I just put on the HP Smart app from the MS store. I typically say no t anything extra possible, and nothing else got installed. I can double check later.

IIRC, HP's website was not very explicit about this new process, so took me a bit to uncover.

I'll buy that for a dollar! *(smart for you or for HP/MS marketing?)

Maybe they've improved? I'll let YOU be the brave tech pioneer though mmk?



A printer driver should be MAXIMUM (and this is bloated) about 50-60 MB's. ... and really all Win10 actually NEEDs is an .inf file which is like 2mb at most.

The majority of printer drivers should fit on a floppy-disk!

Check the size of any HP folders/programs AND perhaps more importantly the SERVICES they're loading and running in the background.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I'll buy that for a dollar! *(smart for you or for HP/MS marketing?)

Maybe they've improved? I'll let YOU be the brave tech pioneer though mmmk ?!?



A printer driver should be MAXIMUM (and this is bloated) about 50-60 MB's. ... and really all Win10 actually NEEDs is an .inf file which is like 2mb at most.

The majority of printer drivers should fit on a floppy-disk!

Check the size of any HP folders/programs AND perhaps more importantly the SERVICES they're loading and running in the background.

Yes, I understand what the bloat ware is you're referring to. I also understand that an actual driver is very small compared to the downloads that manufacturers offer.

However, understand that all the manufacturers I've encountered operate basically the same way. Once one starts doing something, the others will follow suit, imxp at least.

If you'd like to provide examples of the specific HP bloatware process names, I'd be happy to compare with my process list.

Note: Other than HP annoyingly trying to get me to sign up for their auto ink subscription, their new software seems ok so far.

And I'll add once more for emphasis, HP did not really make this HP Smart located in the MS store explicitly clear, but I did stumble my way thru their site and find it.

FWIW, HP makes finding which ink cartridges work for your specific model a bit convoluted, so I just logged into the printers web gui and found it under the tools section.

 

[Captante]

Yes, I understand what the bloat ware is you're referring to. I also understand that an actual driver is very small compared to the downloads that manufacturers offer.

However, understand that all the manufacturers I've encountered operate basically the same way. Once one starts doing something, the others will follow suit, imxp at least.

If you'd like to provide examples of the specific HP bloatware process names, I'd be happy to compare with my process list.

Note: Other than HP annoyingly trying to get me to sign up for their auto ink subscription, their new software seems ok so far.

And I'll add once more for emphasis, HP did not really make this HP Smart located in the MS store explicitly clear, but I did stumble my way thru their site and find it.

FWIW, HP makes finding which ink cartridges work for your specific model a bit convoluted, so I just logged into the printers web gui and found it under the tools section.

I was serious when I said maybe they've improved lol ... I wouldn't know specifically because its been awhile. BTW it would be useful if you know what was running PRE-HP install otherwise unless the process says "HP" you won't know for sure.

All I DO know for sure is that I have both a MF printer/scanner and a monochrome laser installed on my primary and backup desktops.

You know how many processes related to printing are running in the background on my PC? Exactly three, the print-drivers , the imaging driver (both driver-only) and the MS print-spooler which doesn't really count.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I was serious when I said maybe they've improved lol ... I wouldn't know specifically because its been awhile. BTW it would be useful if you know what was running PRE-HP install otherwise unless the process says "HP" you won't know for sure.

All I DO know for sure is that I have both a MF printer/scanner and a monochrome laser installed on my primary and backup desktops.

You know how many processes related to printing are running in the background on my PC? Exactly three, the print-drivers , the imaging driver (both driver-only) and the MS print-spooler which doesn't really count.

It's nice that I don't have to tell their software to NOT install some stupid browser add on or some garbage.

So far, I've only seen one HP service and the HP smart app running.

 

[ultimatebob]

Hell... I'm still mad at HP for buying Compaq and f'ing it up.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm pissed they quit developing world class calculators.