installing photosmart printers as 990c

Like many, I'm fed up with HP not supporting Photosmart printers in Vista except a few diff high end or 4x6 printers. Here's how I got mine to work as a 990c if you're having problems getting it to work. Install the XP drivers and follow the instructions like you would in XP. It wont find the printer or you can just not plug in the usb and cancel. Look in device manager and you should have 2 setting (if you see a 3rd setting, HPG something or other you'll have to monkey around so you only have the 2 IEEE 1284 listed)... the first being IEEE 1284.4 compatible printer and IEEE 1284.4 devices. In the compatible printer one, update the driver and choose I'll install from a list. Install the IEEE 1284.4 compatible printer. In IEEE devices, update the driver, choose from the list and select USB Printer support. Now device manager should refresh and the 2 IEEE settings should vanish. IN the USB hubs sections there should be a setting USB Printer Support. If so all is now good. Go into control panel/printers and add from the list, select HP and choose the 990c. Once it is installed go into the 990c properties, go to Ports and select USB virtual printer port. Now try to print a test page. If it prints ok, go back in to device manager, and there should be a photosmart printer under the yellow ?. Disable it and that'll stop vista from finding your photosmart on every bootup.

On reflection, and I've not tried it this way but its probably easier. Go to control panel, switch to classic view, then go into "add hardware". Don't search just pick from the list and install the ieee 1284 compatible printer and the ieee 1284 devices usb printer support. then set up the 990c in printers, set Port to virtual, and run a test page. Still disable photosmart if its in the unknown driver list in device manager.

I was able to use the printer over a network. I have vista installed on my laptop. I asked to install a network printer, choose the Photosmart, and Vista installed the drivers on the laptop. I was able to print over the network to the Photosmart (a 1115 model.)
"Peter M" wrote:

Like many, I'm fed up with HP not supporting Photosmart printers in Vista except a few diff high end or 4x6 printers. Here's how I got mine to work as a 990c if you're having problems getting it to work. Install the XP drivers and follow the instructions like you would in XP. It wont find the printer or you can just not plug in the usb and cancel. Look in device manager and you should have 2 setting (if you see a 3rd setting, HPG something or other you'll have to monkey around so you only have the 2 IEEE 1284 listed)... the first being IEEE 1284.4 compatible printer and IEEE 1284.4 devices. In the compatible printer one, update the driver and choose I'll install from a list. Install the IEEE 1284.4 compatible printer. In IEEE devices, update the driver, choose from the list and select USB Printer support. Now device manager should refresh and the 2 IEEE settings should vanish. IN the USB hubs sections there should be a setting USB Printer Support. If so all is now good. Go into control panel/printers and add from the list, select HP and choose the 990c. Once it is installed go into the 990c properties, go to Ports and select USB virtual printer port. Now try to print a test page. If it prints ok, go back in to device manager, and there should be a photosmart printer under the yellow ?. Disable it and that'll stop vista from finding your photosmart on every bootup.