I hate HP and their drivers

For all the years I’ve been a computer user, there is something that has always plagued me: printers and their drivers. And the biggest culprit of them all are HP.

From what I remember, I don’t think I’ve been exposed to a HP printer during the last 10 years that didn’t have a problem of some kind. Most of the time, the printers are good products that deliver quality prints, no doubt about that, but what brings the impression and experience way down is faulty and buggy printer drivers that would make Dalai Lama go insane.

Take the HP Setup Assistant, for example. I would like to go by his house, knock down the door and crap on his kitchen table. When he wants me to leave, I will simply state that I have no idea what a door is, and, even less, how to walk. If he questions that statement, I will just “crash” down into a pile of useless matter…

I sincerely wonder how much time has been wasted for so many people through software which has sucked harder than most software ever released (with the possible exception of Netscape 4 and RealPlayer…).

HP, seriously: you have to either get proper software developers on board or at least educate the existing ones. You also need to test your software more before it’s released. You can produce good print-outs; just make the software that goes with it to live up to that standard.

72 Comments

  • Chris says:

    Reading your Post I think that you didn’t try a Lexmark or Brother yet.
    I do some administrative tasks in our office (like installing printer drivers if anything goes wrong) and these are not a bit better πŸ™
    At home I have a Canon and a Kyocera and they both run like a charm. No driver trouble at all.

  • Andreas says:

    Isnt printers connected via the LAN these days?

  • Karl says:

    Totally with you on this.

    HP. Why oh why do I have to install your camera / photo printing bloatware when all I want to do is "plug and play" and print a single page document? And thanks for not supplying the USB lead too. Like power cables, I'd like one for each device please.

    Add a few expletives and that sums up a recent experience with connecting an HP printer to my PC.

  • ullumski says:

    Sorry to pull the "fruit-card" again .. but have you ever tried an apple?

    Thats real Plug'n'Play for almost all printers out there ..

    (No windows-bashing intended, just my own observation)

    (^-^)

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Chris,

    Actually, no, haven't tried any of those. πŸ™‚

    Andreas,

    In a good scenario, yes. But that doesn't always eliminate the need for certain printer drivers.

    Karl,

    Ah, right, I didn't even mention the extra software thath they have to force on you. Hate that too.

    ullumski,

    Actually, the biggest problems I've had with HP drivers have been on a Mac (I'm both a PC and Mac user).

  • Pat says:

    Robert you must of been reading my mind. For the last week I've been focused on a crappy HP driver. After my trusty HP laserjet was telling me "Fill me up", and finding out a new cartridge was gonna cost me $90.00 CAD, I tried for the life of me to hook up another HP printer I had. You'd think it would be easy.. ya right! I went through all the steps a thousand times, and even messed with my registry like they tell you too! Gawd, that's another thing, all those trouble shooting steps.. what!? they can't find the time to hook you up with an easy reg file to double click on! I ended up buying another HP deskjet 'cause stupid me, I thought it would be cheaper! Boy I was wrong… can we say "Where the hell is the USB cable?!" Oh and hey there's no B&W ink cartridge. Nice! My $50.00 printer just cost me $100!

    Tech is a joke, and complaining didn't get me any further. What happened to business courtesy.. like "We're sorry, we'll send you a new driver, or here's a $20.00 USB cable on us, just for trying HP!". Thanks for nothing, except, sorries, and cut/pasting the same install steps I went through a thousand times to install the damn driver.

    In the end, I brought back the new printer, went to my local ink guy, and between the laserjet refill, and a new colour refill for my old deskjet, it's gonna save me money. I should of checked the ink guy first to find the deals, it would of saved me alot of grief. Oh ya, why another refill for my old desjet? I had to reinstall XP on top of XP to get the stupid driver working.

    Sorry for the long post.. and venting. I've been a mad crazy, frustrated person for the last week πŸ™

  • Epson aren't much better in the usability stakes, at least on the Mac. Their printer utility, at least for my printer, is implemented with a dialog box masquerading as the main window. This means that, if it's open and you shut down your machine, the shut down will eventually timeout and be cancelled because, from the operating system's point of view, an application has an open dialog, which might be something important like a prompt to save unsaved work.

    I'm pretty sure that what appears to be the main application window having "Cancel" and "OK" buttons violates the Apple Human Interface Guidelines somehow.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Pat,

    Trust me, I definitely feel and understand your pain. πŸ™‚

    Nick,

    Hmm, so Epson is as bad? Sad to hear…

  • Walter says:

    Statement: "All printers are bads" πŸ™‚

    Ever tried Fedora Core and CUPS?

    The real Plug and Play for HP.

  • Alex Leonard says:

    I would like to go by his house, knock down the door and crap on his kitchen table. When he wants me to leave, I will simply state that I have no idea what a door is, and, even less, how to walk. If he questions that statement, I will just “crashâ€Â down into a pile of useless matter…

    Brilliant. That made me laugh out loud.

    Thanks.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Walter,

    Nope, no experience with that.

    Alex,

    I'm glad I could entertain. πŸ™‚

  • Arjan Eising says:

    My father bought us a new <abbr title="">HP</abbr> all-in-one a few years ago, when they were over five-hundred Euro, but their 'scanning interface' and drivers didn't work fine.

    A few weeks ago I bought myself a Canon Pixma, which works just fine with an integrated interface etc.

    So what do you think I prefer πŸ˜‰

  • Ed_V says:

    Not only are the HP drivers crappy – but what about all the unnecessary background services they like to install?

    You can eliminate most of them, but you must mess with the registry to do so.

    Reminds me of Norton programs that want to take over your computer…

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Arjan,

    Interesting to hear!

    Ed_V,

    Yes, I agree; they are extremely annoying.

  • Paul Solecki says:

    A late comment but if you're a gamer HP drivers are ridiculous. Every so often an app pops up to do something (check for updates?) causing a game to lose focus and it pops you back to the desktop. A little distracting to say the least when you're fragging someone in UT2004! πŸ˜‰

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Paul,

    I can definitely understand that. πŸ™‚

  • James Shimota (VP Te says:

    Needed a forum to vent and stopped here. The things I could say about HP… Hate is not strong enough. 8 years ago, HP decided to use JAVA based installers and attempted to simplify their software while at the same time, adding more junk, ads, sells tools etc. What a joke. Its been going into the toilet ever since. This pertains to any HP Scanner, HP Printer… all the parts that made HP what used to be a good strong vendor with solid parts. Anyone remember the HP Laserjet II or III? Even the HP IV and V were good machine. Then they went plastic and attempted to compete with lowend vendors like Brother and their days became numbered.

    3 yrs ago, HP merged or bought Compaq. Another company that had a niche market and excelled (servers) and attempted to penetrate the desktop and laptop markets. The merger of the two companies destroyed what, if any, support environment they had left. Now, as most American companies realize that India support isn't working (its ok for a front end as long as there is escalation back to the US) HP continues to feel service is not something they need to do and they rely whole hog on people reading scripts.

    I've just spent 2.5 hrs trying to get a warranty on an HP part. Disgusting effect. Being referred back to their website, to read how 'award winning (who's? Crap of the year?) support and to find no links to speak to any US based person with Native English skills, I'm appalled. simply appalled.

    I'm not intending to threaten but this will undoubtedly sound like it – I'm done telling anyone anything positive about HP. I will lament from this day forward that any client of mine run, not walk, from any HP product. This includes Compaq products as well. Dell is doing a better job for servers, and in the multifunction printer world, it looks like the recommendation will have to be Canon, Epson and the like.

    Thanks for reading. Did I mention I REALLY HATE HP!

  • Robert Nyman says:

    James,

    Thanks for venting! πŸ™‚

  • Simon Pang says:

    I want to scream out loud. I HATE HP !!!

    Since I bought the HP Pavilion computer, it gave me nothing but trouble. Crashes, freezen up all the time for no reason at all. At first I blamed it on Microsoft window but found out that my brother's computer which has window and not an HP has no problem at all.

    Later I received a letter from an attorney firm telling me there was a class action lawsuit against HP for selling the defective computer that I have been using. The compensation? Coupons from HP for buying their products while the atterney get ton of money. I declined the offer to join the suit and would rather reserve the right to sue HP.

    The HP 5600 printer is even more of a pain in the neck. It's not the quality of the printer that has problems. It's the printer driver that drives me nuts. I have used printers of other brands before. The drivers of those printers are very easy to install but installing the HP driver is like going into a maze with mischievous signs. It took me triple the amount of time to install.

    Yesterday I needed to print some envelopes but found out that I had to put the shorter edge of the envelopes in first because the paper tray is too narrow. But no matter how hard I tried to configure the printer to print on the vertically positioned envelope by following the HP instructions EXACTLY, it just didn't work. The program just got stuck and the computer even freezed up, so I had to reboot the computer to try again and again. The webmaster of this site says that he wants to crap on the kitchen table of the HP software programmer, I wish I could do the same.

    Now after I have tried more than twenty times, I give up. I will buy a new printer which must never be a HP. I won't take a HP printer even if it is free.

    I HATE HP. HP should stand for Horrible Programming.

  • Simon Pang says:

    Before I went to buy a new printer, I decided to try a few more more times to solve the problem of printing envelope in the verticale orientation.

    First, I tried the HP help in the HP printer program. But it still didn't work. Then I thought may be I can use the Microsoft Works Word Processor to change the setting.

    The Envelope function was under Tools but it has no options for Envelope Feed.

    Finally I found the answer in Works Help by typing in Envelope Feed. I was very surprised that it told me to click on the File manu to look for orientation. Envelope Feed was on the same page with orientation. It tried it, it worked!!!

    I don't understand why the window programmers did not put Envelope Feed in Envelope under the Tool manu or make a link from Envelope to Envelope Feed under the File manu. It dosn't make sense at all.

    Remember when I first got my computer. I didn't know how to turn the computer off. Then I was shocked to find out that I had to click on the Start to turn it Off. Those programmers have no commonsense at all. It's like they want the computer users to play hide and seek and worse still by providing them with false clues.

    Moreover,sometimes those programmers are very stupid in choosing the proper words to use in the computer. I never use my computer for any illegal purposes But I found this message even before I had a chance to check out adult porn which is legal in California. It goes something like this "You have done an ILLEGAL action. Window will be closing down." I was so scared. Did I inadvertently stumble into something illegal. My sister worked for Oracle at that time so I told my sister about it. My sister laughed at me and said, "It only means you have pressed a wrong key. It doesn't mean you have done sometime that would put you in jail."

    My God! Ilegal action? Why don't they say Wrong action, Problematic action or You have pressed the wrong keys? So stupid!

    Even though I finally solved the problem of printing envelopes in vertical feed, no thanks to HP nor Microsoft. Their programming stinks.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Simon,

    I appreciate your sharing, and I'm sorry to hear how much trouble you've had.

  • Simon Pang says:

    Correction for typo: The HP printer is 5650, not 5600.

  • Tom Law says:

    My HP printer just bit the dust by the doing of my sledge hammer in the garage. The only fun I ever had with that pos…at least in the garage it was close to the garbage bin where it should have gone the day I got it.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Tom,

    That's fantastic! I'd love to do that one day!

  • kael says:

    i'm totally agree hp printer is suck. I have experience before when i working with my previous company. We have contract with one of the government body supplying PCs, Printers and Scanners for leasing which we made HP as our supplier. Our nightmare started when Printers and The Scanners was malfunction and we have reported so many time and given so many solutions but still not work. Our Client seriously disappointed with us but as you know we only can get solution from the source which is HP itself. I was 100% mad with the 3rd level support which give solutions that 100% not working. The told us the reason why it's not working due to driver which incompatible between Printer and Scanner. I really mad because it has been 1 month the problem still not solved. My customer keep on complaining why the Printer and scanner not working and it comes from the same product which suggested by the HP business manager.

    Just to make a sad story i was fortunate by getting offer a new job πŸ™‚ so i left the company with unlucky customer. But after 3-4 months i heard back from them the issues still not solved. You just imagine the customer pay $1 million for 1 year and it is for 3 years leasing equal to $3 million. For 4 months business processes in their department that really need Printer and scanner to do their job but unfortunately not smoothing them but make their nightmare and wasted their money.

    HP customer service I 100% agree they have no high responsibility and 100% Sucks πŸ™‚

  • Robert Nyman says:

    kael,

    Thanks for sharing that story!

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Octavio,

    Very true about running the setup, which most people trust, and the possible consequences.

  • Octavio says:

    Looking around I got here, and after reading several posts, I will agree with something: when you're buying a new device (printer, scanner, webcam, etc), what most people will do is use the CD provided and run SETUP to install the driver from there, but most don't realize that along the driver, it will install a bunch of programs and services you don't really need.

    Regarding printers, I have bought HP, Epson, and Canon, and I have seen all of them will try to take over your pc by installing unnecessary files & services. That's why, I always let windows ask me for the driver. I only supply the CD, let windows load the driver, and that's it.

    In other words : Don't run SETUP. I hate when people do that, but well, not everybody is well related with pc's

    By the way, nobody is happy with everything, so there will always be people complaining for something others love, and viceversa. That's life

  • Octavio says:

    Extra info: I LOVE old HP laser printers : LJ 1100, LJ 2100, LJ 2200, LJ 4100, etc. Not problems with drivers. Windows will recognize them instantly and hey, they last forever!!

  • name says:

    I hate HP becaz they are forcing me to use a certain OS which i dont want to use and lots of application are not working without patch… & i m stuck with vista

    & now i m regretting my decision of buying HP Pavillion dv6000 series laptop

  • name says:

    I want HP to know how frusted i m now after searching for 2 days for sound driver for XP…..

    After being a buyer of HP now

    I Hate HP

    I Hate HP

    I Hate HP

  • Greg Vail says:

    Add me to the HP Hate Club!

    Can't wait for some little dude in China to make a solid printer that works with your computer in a non-invasive way, with ink that is not as expensive as the printer.

    I downloaded an update that was 148?mb in hopes of getting the dang printer to print from computer files at all. I have set up an old printer now and can't even get this cool new, all-in-one to work now.

    I hate HP.

    I will not be buying garbage like this again.

    Greg Vail
    http://www.SaxPlayersBlog.com

  • Matthew Janes says:

    Well, I had a very nice HP printer which I have enjoyed for several years. It is a Deskjet 6122 and is the first HP printer I have had which has been quite resiliant to jamming and other breakdowns. Unfortunately, HP has decided *not* to create a Windows Vista compatible driver for the printer, and since I am in a Vista only environment now, I have a printer which I can only print text to via a "compatible" HP driver. "Thanks" HP for forcing me to upgrade. I promise it won't be with another HP printer.

  • Alan says:

    I have to totally agree. I have wasted countless WEEKS of my life on HP software. The pure fact that their drivers are just so poorly written, that you need to run special uninstallers to remove it.

    HP customer support is another joke. Once I spent 5 hours on the phone with some dude in India and he left my machine in a non-bootable state and never called back. Well done HP.

    I'm a tech guy – been in the industry for 20+ years designing and writing software for software companies. HP needs a lesson in quality.

    Example 1: DesignJet 500. You buy this printer, looks good, hardware is ok, software is useless. No matter on what paltform I install their software, the software does not retain any settings I save. In addition, it randomly ejects pages so I end up wasting paper and ink. Can HP address the issue? No.

    Example 2: HP OfficeJet L7680 All In One. First of all, nice printer, bit noisy, but very nice format. However, when you install the software, you are installing a bomb. They install about 40GB of crap that you never use. Windows itself picks up the printer, gets consfused with the installer, your lucky if you can get the scanner working, then when you do get it working, 3 or 4 weeks later, the driver just disappears. Well done HP. Can you install over with the original HP disks? No. Any reason why the HP devices just go away? NO. Call support and HP will screw you, seriously.

  • amit ganguli says:

    I TOTALLY agree, I sincerely and absolutely HATE the new HP printers. Actually the drivers are a classic case of engineering feature creep leading to feature OVERLOAD: The drivers are more than 250 MBs! And they are terribly written! The cartridges are very expensive and give short lifetimes! Quality is TERRIBLE – my scanner did not work fresh out of the box.

    The main reason i bought my F300 printer-scanner-photocopier was because I was used to the OLD HP printers – they worked GREAT.

    Actually I think I might know the reason, the drivers these days are actually written by OUTSIDE agencies – Infosys and Wipro of India and some by HP India. I actually KNOW some of these Engineers socially and they are TERRIBLE – I would not employ them on ANY account! And I dont think they can be "trained" any further, as Robert Nyman suggests – a monkey will always be a monkey, irrespective of whether you "train" it to drink tea out of a cup and saucer! And before anyone shouts "RACISM" – I am an Indian Engineer / Applied Physicist myself – but thankfully not in software πŸ™‚ nor outsourcing / contracting.

    I have written to HP about this a LONG time ago, and suggested they change their strategy by getting software engineers in Eastern European countries annd stop using Indian software engineers who are ghastly! I dont think anyone listened :-). Atleast "HP" is a wee bit better than "Compaq" – woe betide anyone who gets a Compaq anything these days – I dont even want to get started with that!

    I think HP is in the risk of becoming the Ford / GM of the computer industry – a social club with a side business of making Computers/Peripherals.

  • Carolyn says:

    I am not a computer tech, just a consumer trying to print simple #10 envelopes from a list of addresses in a word document. The only way I can get them to print is to go throught hoops, stopping & starting the print spooler, canceling & retrying the print document & starting & stopping the printer. There is no rhyme or reason. I have been on a support chat line for 1 1/2 hrs. last weekend & now for over 7 hours….first w/HP who said it was not their problem since the HP printer does print everything else (just not envelopes), then with Microsoft, then twice with Dell support in India & finally back to HP. Everyone I speak to claims it is the others' responsibility.

    I can not believe that, as they claim, no one else has this problem. What a waste of time with no resolution! Should I just return the HP (assuming it's the driver) & buy what? I could have been finished hours ago if I had hand addressed the stupid envelopes!

    Any suggestions?

  • Tom M says:

    Add me to the haters list. In Dec. I bought a new HP computer and printer to replace my 7 year old HP ones. Big mistake, especially the printer. The install never worked from the supplied CD, I have spent close to 15 hours downloading drivers and talking to India trying to get the *@#& thing to work. Working with the 4th tech person, I was finally able to get things working, but I found out yesterday, that was too good to be true. I tried to scan a picture to my computer, but couldn't b/c there was no scan to computer option on the printer or computer, even though there is supposed to be. HPs response: problem with the installation, must uninstall and reinstall. I told the tech person that wouldn't work, he wouldn't listen so we uninstalled and of course the reinstall failed. So once again I have a big doorstop. He then suggested I call back when a level 2 tech was available, thanked me for calling HP support, and wanted to know if there was anything else he could do? I went off, told him he hadn't done anything yet so how could he do anything else and that 2 weeks and all the time I have wasted are completely unacceptable for trying to get one of their printers to work with one of their computers and hung up. I have to try again tonight, but I have no expectations of success. How the heck do some people have no install problems and others can't even get the CD to work? HP even has articles posted on the web for what to do when the install hangs at 96%, which mine did once. They know there is a problem but seem unable to fix it. I'll leave the problems with the computer for another time.

  • Tony K says:

    Hi

    I could not agree more with the sentiment of yourself and the others whom have left comments. I am in the unfortunate position of having 7 HP printers in the company I work for. A simple, "please send out a technician to repair our printer" results in a @#$@#$%^ 30 to 90 minute exercise going through useless BS exercises that you will have already done when trouble-shooting yourself. Telling them you have already done these steps does not help and you still 'help diagnose' the problem.

    I came accross this while searching for help on getting the scanning software to work without spawning multiple processes and driving me insane.

    As said, run don't walk away from HP! ARGH

  • I came across this blog and appreciated the story, along with all the reader comments. I'm just sorry that they are all associated with painful stories about HP products and/or customer service. And I too have many personal painful experiences with HP products and their service.

    I was a very loyal HP customer for years, but HP product quality and customer service has declined so much in recent years I'm no longer loyal. I'm actually a vocal unhappy (ex) HP customer.

    http://unhappyhpcustomers.blogspot.com/

  • Justin Fernandez says:

    I've had to go through so much crap with Hp. My laptop continues to aks me for a new product key to activate windows, and after sending it in to Hp for this same problem 3 times, talking with Windows people with an Hp person on the same line, trying to work with Hp people who attempt to solve the problem it still persists! Before I sent it in the third time I was told that if the problem happened again I would be issued a new laptop because this one is defective, but now that I ask about that they say they can't do that, and I am entitled to no compensation what so ever. So right now I have to wait for a case manager to call me back tomorrow because after speaking with him he couldn't fix the problem, so he's going to ask around tomorrow with his enginering buddies.

    Yeah, I'll believe the problems fixed when I can use my computer for a month without seeing this dang product key thing.

  • mo says:

    I HATE HP IN GENERAL AFTER MY COUSIN BOUGHT ME DV9000 LAPTOP NEW!! IT SLOWLY STARTED TO BREAK DOWN UNITL THE MOTHERBOARD DIDN'T RESPOND AT ALL SO I GOT A NEW (BECAUSE THAT HP'S POLICY) AND IT WOULDN'T TURN ON. HP IS A JOKE. YOU ARE BETTER OFF WITH CLASSIC COMPUTER.

  • James Shimota says:

    And now… after toileting HP by upper management (then firing the CEO …) some idiot has actually put the fired HP CEO lady on the short list for Repulican VP's!? I could care what party youre affiliated with, but seriously?

    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/22/carly-fi

    Some one save us? Where is superman when we need him? Spidey? are you there?

  • robert pedersen says:

    hi all
    fine if you hate their software so much why don´t you either choos the custom installation where you unselect most of the software.
    Or you can go to the hp website respective to you contry and download the basic driver! and can´t come and say you can´t, you have written on this site so you do have internet! think bit for your selved

  • robert pedersen says:

    hi all

    fine if you hate their software so much why don´t you either choos the custom installation where you unselect most of the software.

    Or you can go to the hp website respective to you contry and download the basic driver! and can´t come and say you can´t, you have written on this site so you do have internet! think bit for your selved

  • James Shimota says:

    omg. and the saga's continue. THis story is the best so far for me.

    I've written to this blog before, and swore (and have adhered to it) that I would never buy or recommend HP to a client for the rest of my life. but… I still have hp crap in my office… so.. last year in July I bought an HP Personal media Drive. its an external USB drive that can fit into this cute bay on an HP computer if you have one. Well. 1 month later it had died. Hp had no idea what to do with me and I won't even recount that story. but… last month the replacement drive died again. Its HP and I shouldn't have expected better, and I didn't. I do backups on other manufacturers, and this was just for extra storage. So I called HP at 10:45pm and got india – hp's headquarters. after trying with all my might to explain I didn't have an hp computer or laptop, I got transfered. then the next guy said I was in the wrong dept and transfered me again, then I got a guy who after just getting my model number into his screen – disconnected. No stranger to HP support I had expected this, and called back and started all over. the explainations, the 'I'm the wrong dept' or 'I don't have a model hd0000 in my system, what kind of computer do you have?'. Finally, I got to this guy who said 'sorry sir, that serial number is out of warranty'. now at 12:20 I'm getting greased up the wazzooo but I'm no wimp… and I force him to locate the warranty length. I tell him my order number from Hp when I bought it, the date etc… and he's really confused now. his computer tells him one thing, but his brain doesn't compute that a problem exists. So he gives up the golden info – write this down folks! a U.S. number for escalation!!!! 650-857-1501. This is HP Support Case Managers IN THE USA that can help direct and resolve problems! (You can all kiss my later and HP can kiss my …)

    WIthout doubt I'll be bent over again, but at least I'll get polite talk while they do it and from someone I don't have to help read their screen. *bows*

    Your welcome. Enjoy that phone number – for google – HP US service support case managers help 650-857-1501.

  • Paul Hugenberger says:

    I can not agree with you more. I HATE HP printer Software with a passion. I have spent days correcting HP AIO software issues. I am sorry, but a printer should not require 400 megabytes of software and drivers and 45 minutes per machine to install. This is just unacceptable. And forget it if something goes wrong (which it usually does) like your firewall blocking the network printer and you have to start over. And why do they need 4 levels of uninstallers on the installation CD that are close to impossible to even find.

    I have installed many Brother, Epson and Canon printers as well as Minolta and never have the type of problems that I have with HP. You can not blame it on the extra number of features, I have installed many office Xerox, Ricoh and other floor model copiers that have plenty of features and no problems. Don’t even think of having more than one HP AIO printer installed at the same time.

  • HP missed the boat, and sank the 5600 Office Jet and the 8200 Photo printer (both recent purchases).

    The drivers are non-standard and downloads are worthless. Overbloated (and uncessary application bundling) added to the misery of owning both of these machines, not to mention the ridiculous price of the consumables.

    Too bad HP didn't leave it alone and just keep on creating great products, like back in the day of the HP 2100 LaserJet.

    Instead, I'm twice disgruntled and there is no healing in sight (site).

  • Rodney Smith says:

    I seem to have come late to this discussion – stumbled across it because I was so angry that I just googled "I hate HP" to see what happened. I'm not an IT expert, just an ordinary semi-computer-literate home user, and what bugs me is that it seems to feel the need to keep reinstalling the driver software and making me register all over again. Also, I was so fed up with ridiculous UK prices that I bought a set of cartridges for my C5180 last time I was in the US. Guess what? HP have "regionalized ink" so they won't work! How can there be a need for regionalized ink? Surely ink is ink, wherever it is! Anyone know anything about this?

  • EdwardSmith says:

    I used to own a HP All-In-One 1510 printer but I dumped it recently for a Canon printer.

    Geez, a director of corporate communications at HP Canada told me on September 25, 2008 by phone that complaints — including mine — are very rare at HP Canada. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing…..

    My “I hate HP” story is a long one. Here is the short version. I ran into problems twice with my HP printer. The most recent was when I could not get the damn thing to print. I called HP customer service who said they wanted $35.00 before they would help! I told the perky customer service agent that hell would freeze over before I sent any customer service dept $ 35.00 to help me solve problems with their own product.

    After numerous calls to poorly trained HP staff, I emailed the CEO Mr. Mark Hurd in California. As a result, HP sent me a free kit to clean the rollers in the printer. The kit needs a CD-ROM to run the cleaning process. I was not aware that my CD-ROM was broken.

    I told HP I would upgrade my tower (CPU) with a new HP CPU if they would take back my HP 1510. Another perky HP agent said she would get back to me with a proposal on the upgrades. I waited three weeks but she never called. I kept calling HP and getting no where. I kept emailing Hurd and copied my complaint to a consumer specialist with a metro newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

    Eventually, after getting totally fed up, I told the CEO that I was dumping the HP printer for a Canon. I got a copy of Consumer Reports magazine for May 2008 (?) which just happened to rate computer printers. I bought one of the Canons that they rated highly. Have not had any probs with the Canon since. It was less expensive ($ 69 Cdn + tax) than the HP printer and has twice the number of features — just an excellent product.

    Because I was so upset, the HP director of corporate communications called me on Sept 15, 2008. I told him all of the above and more besides. Also, I told him I used a lot of ink cartridges with the HP 1510 and had to stop buying original HP cartridges because they were so freaking expensive ( $19.99 + tax) and switched to refills ($ 9.99 + tax). The lady at the refill store said my cartridge for the HP printer only held 5 mL (one teaspoon) of ink! No wonder I had to keep refilling it every 3 weeks.

    I told Mister director of corporate communications at HP that I wanted to send my HP printer back to the corporate office and asked for recycling info and if I could get a refund. I had the printer for less than a couple of years. He said he would get back in a day or two.

    I waited a freaking week but he never called. I had to leave him a heavy-duty phone message to call me as promised. He finally called and said he would send a follow-up email which he did — but forgot to include in the email a response as to whether I would get a refund or partial refund.

    I had to email him AGAIN on the latter issue. He finally called on Sept 25 saying HP was refusing to refund any of my hard earned money that I paid for the printer. He then followed with the blah, blah, blah phony comments about how sorry he was about all the trouble I had with HP and was sorry to lose me as a customer — Yeah, right.

    In one of his emails was information on recycling printers with a link to the HP recycling site. (As mentioned above, I had requested this info as I do not like sending electronic junk like the HP printer to landfills). I could not figure out how to use the recycling site so I called HP. An agent told me the service was totally free and all I had to do was download an address label from the site. I ended the call and went back to the site but could not find the FREE address label anywhere on the site.

    I called HP recycling back AGAIN on Sept 25, 2008 and this time got a completely different story from another HP agent who said I had to pay a freaking fee to send my HP printer back to them for recycling! Well that’s one fee they will never see. The damn printer is going back to HP, addressed to the CEO Mark Hurd, supposing I have to walk barefoot the whole 2400 kilometres from here to Toronto myself, dragging the HP printer behind me.

    I have now sent another email to Mister Director of Corporate Communications asking him why he didn’t tell me earlier that there was a recycling fee –especially given all the probs I had previously with HP — on top of HP refusing to give me my money back for the Hewlett Crappard printer.

    ARRRRGGGHH!!! Don’t people who work as directors of corporate communications go to university for years studying how to communicate with customers????

    I am waiting for his reply. I copied Mr. Mark Hurd CEO and the consumer specialist on that email. I have also asked Mister Director of Corporate Communications for the contact info for the members of the Board of Directors of HP in the USA. My gut feeling is that HP is just trying to sell as many products as possible to keep profits up but, in my opinion, are saying to hell with customer service. It is my personal belief that they are being inundated with complaints and simply cannot keep up. It may explain why it took a week for Mister Director of Corporate Communications at HP to get back to me when he said he would get back in a day or two. I could be wrong.

    I feel screwed over by bad customer service at HP Canada. I have wasted hours of my time as a small business owner dealing with HP. I run my small business from my home. Time is money to me. I don’t like to bear resentment against any corporate giants no matter how incompetent they are or how incompetent they appear to be. I just no longer will accept the feeling of being ripped off and screwed over by HP. They lost me as a customer and I hope the 10 people I tell about my bad experience (in addition to the people reading this blog) will each tell 10 others which makes 100 customers.

    I always first give corporations the benefit of the doubt when it comes to customer service, and I am patient while waiting for them to get off their butts to make me a happy customer. When they don’t follow through, I GET REALLY ANGRY, and then I tell others.

    Thanks everyone for listening to my long rant. Wow….I feel better already….I think I will copy and paste my rant and then print it on my new Canon printer Ò€” ta da !

  • Robert Nyman says:

    I haven't written anything here in a long while, but I just wanted to thank everyone for sharing their experiences!

  • Victor says:

    Please add my name to the "I HATE HP" Club

    I'm repulsed that HP refuses to update their KB when a known problem exists with the HP Officeject 6310 series corrupting Vista OS. And to make it worse, the HP tech support supervisor stated that they wouldn't share information with Microsoft and only HP Tech Support could fix the problem. SHAME on YOU HP!!!

    I will never buy an HP anything again…

    Horrible People make Horrible Products

  • David_HP6310xi says:

    All I wanted was to fricken print!!! I don't want to download crappy picture software.

    Ofcourse the "driver bundle" 31.54 mbs has a bug and won't install properly…now I'm forced to download the whole thing 298MB just to print!!!

  • Gabe says:

    Guys I'm in the haters club. After three days of calling, getting dropped/hung up on and spending useless time with "internet support" (Read: some kid overseas with no knowledge of beginners computing) for their sh*tty driver, I finally snapped. After being told that it would cost me $35 to get support bc my printer was just outside of warranty, I complained and asked to be transferred to a manager. That call was dropped.

    I unplugged the printer and beat it to death. No more problems with HP because I will NEVER buy one of their products again.

  • david says:

    i have a hp and suxs the battery never holds a charge and i now have a vertical line on my screen and like others oooooh it's not under warranty. don't GO WITH THIS PRODUCT THEY SUCK!ty have a great day.

  • david says:

    oh 1 more thing HP SUCKS OUT LOUD!

  • Rolf says:

    Octavio, I agree 100%… dont run setup

    The thing is… HP all in one printers come with ADF (automatic document feeder), and scanner and all. Im not sure if all these drivers are provided the way you describe. Some features might not be available if you do the install like you described.

    I hate HP drivers too, theyre ridiculous and i really dont trust them, they install services and crap and require a restart….

    BTW, HP is crap. I know the name HP is prestigidious and all, but please if youre considering a priter, give a chance to the other brands (canon, etc….). With hp youre almost sure to get:

    – Cheap plastic finish that will easily break

    – Drivers that will make you wonder whether you are installing a driver or installing a new operating system

    – Weird problems with the driver (freeze, etc…)

    – Low reliablility (we have 4 hp printers in the office here, and 2 of them are in repair right now)

  • Kathy S says:

    My experience this past week has been so similar to all who HATE HP on this blog, especially Tom M and Tony K. I was the very first Director of Service Marketing for Compaq Computer back in 1984 when there was such a thing as customer service and people actually responded to technical issues. HP used to be like that also. Now HP owns Compaq and they outsource so called tech support to India and Malaysia. All they know how to do is read the instructions produced by some low level person who understands nothing. After going through several CHATS and several level 3 uninstalls/reinstalls, my problem with the OfficeJet J3680 remains the same – IT WILL NOT SCAN. It is still going into constant cycles of trying to find a particular driver that is not on the CD, not on the downloaded exe file and nowhere I can located it anywhere. This file it is looking for is called SCAN.MSI. Does anyone have any insight regarding this issue?
    I also agree with all that this is the last HP product I will ever purchase. I have this one at home office, another HP 6100 at my real estate office and another at my husband’s office. Each will be replaced as they become useless with another manufacturer.
    When I see HP stock recommended by CNBC, I’m pretty sure they don’t have to install their own printers.

  • Dagmar Sand says:

    Hi, good post. I have been pondering this issue,so thanks for sharing. I will certainly be subscribing to your blog.

  • Marcus says:

    I have a very expensive HP all in one network printer and it is driving me CRAZY AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

    The astounding amount of bloatware required even to get the most basic functions working (like maybe printing a page?) is just ridiculous. Oh, and of course I've largely been restricted to printing test pages.

    I bought this printer for my wife and apart from the odd 10 minutes here and there, it has never worked – the software and drivers are utterly hopeless.

    Searching for solutions on the website is totally hit and miss, and I can't count the number of times when I thought I was starting to make some progress, only to get yet another error message telling me that something else entirely unrelated was causing a problem, which sends me off on yet another wild goose chase.

    The online help with the agents is highly variable – to be fair they do seem to try, but what use is that if they can't solve the problem? They are paid to sit there for eight hours talking about uploading new drivers – the thing is, I'm not.

    I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that this £300 device s now little more than a doorstop.

    I can't understand why a company like HP has such unbelieveably poor software development and quality control? To do a full driver install for this printer takes about 20 minutes (and the same to uninstall) and at the end of it, you find out that the basic stuff doesn't work – how is this possible?

    NEVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN am I going to buy an HP device. I'm done, finished, life is way too short to deal with this cr*p.

  • Francois says:

    I started a little research on how to find a non-invasive driver, and here I am. I hate to here that the alternatives don't look good. All these crappy prepackaged programs are a real drag at startup.

  • Mike A says:

    I've been computing since the very late 80's and have yet to have the type of problem you describe with an HP printer driver. And I've purchased a number of newer, AIO's style printers in the past few years ( all HP, btw, except one Canon for photos) and NEVER had a problem, either with driver install, or not having the cable(s) I needed.

    My big issue is with HP PC and laptop support services. Or Unsupported disservices, is more like it. You buy a pc with a 64 bit processor, you expect to have full 64 bit support and have drivers made available for it, even though HP was stupid enough to ship it with a 32 bit OS. But noooo, that's asking too much these days. I was told flat out and point blank, less than one y ear after I bought my DV8305US Pavilion laptop, that if I wanted driver support from HP for a 64 bit OS, I needed to go out and buy a new laptop. Less than a year after I bought it.

    Used to be a time, when I worked in the computer industry in IT services departments, I would very highly recommend HP period. Now because of how I was treated, unless it is given to me for free, you won't find me acquiring a new HP product ever again. Even if I have to spend more for an inferior one from someone else.

  • Sam says:

    I just have to chime in here. I hate hate hate HP printer software. What printer manufacturers usually do is provide print drivers; and then you can very simply and easily install the printer through the windows add/remove printer process. Very simple. Why does HP want to install the *full* software, when all I need are the drivers. Even with the drivers, it won't let me install. Did I mention that I hate HP?

    The worst thing is that HP Smart Web Printing crashed several machines in my company. It would freeze IE, and then when you try to uninstall the HP Smart Web Printing component, it rips out almost all the users' profile — Docs, Desktop, even Start Menu and quicklaunch menu items. Everything. Gone, without a trace. So I contacted HP on several occasions. Their response? "That's not possible. HP Smart Web Printing cannot do that." I beg to differ. I insisted time and again to get some escalation with the engineers; that's what we typically do with Dell and Microsoft, when there's no existing resolution. In the end, my favorite line that the HP so-called escalation customer support person said: "We do not provide customers access to engineers." In the end, she still insisted that this is simply not possible, and that I should reinstall and other worthless troubleshooting steps. So much for any real 'escalation'. Did I mention that I hate HP?

  • Ted says:

    OK–HP Driver Installs can suck…Here is the easy way: Get to the "Add Printer" wizard in windows. (Search Help and Support to get a link to the wizard" Select local printer, and then point the wizard at the CD-Rom that came w/ your printer and let windows find the driver there. That way you will have a barebones printer driver install and no bloatware. Windows Scanning wizard is good enough to scan from an All-In-One device…Alternatively, try HP's Universal Printer Driver here: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/

    Select PCL 5 or 6 if you are a general user, and PS (PostScript) if you are into professional printing type stuff.

  • bill fleming says:

    You have never spoke truer words. I needed to replace a 6310 hp. I got a 8400 wide formate printer. Itwas supposedly their best. It diffinitely cost enough! I intended to use it for business. 6 months after I got it went bad. I could not use it for at least that long because I had a stroke. When I began to talk the support tech(Haha), he said the pinter should not be used in a wide form, which is what bthe printer was supposed to be designed for. So technically it was still brand new. After 23 hours of being on their support line they replaced it with a reconditioned machine. it went bad . after another 8 hours on the support line they decided to replace it with a new cheaper 7000 printer. which also gave me trouble THIS TIME BECAUSE THE IDIOT ON THE SUPPORT LINE DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING! I finally had to play around with their stupid printer program to solve the problem. So I am stuck with this stupid cheap printer. I can not correct the colors for accuracy, it does what it wants. It was supposed to be for color prints in 11 x 17 formate. There is no accuracy in any way about it. The machine is designed for high capacity ink cartages, but they are not! So I agree any one who buys HP is crazy. That gose for Cumputers too.

  • AgentWoods says:

    A class action lawsuit has been filed against Hewlett Packard in regards to intentional misrepresentation of their Inkjet Printers’ capacity/ functioning between 2001 and 2010. HP’s proposed settlement entails giving affected consumers $2-6 e-credits toward purchases http://www.shopping.hp.com– the use of which they would ultimately benefit from! Make your objection known.

    For more info, see http://thenerdleague.org/archives/296

  • jfk says:

    hp assistant is without a doubt the most bullsh!t thin ever….

  • jfk says:

    why do they ship stuff that dosent work as is and think it is ok to make it hard to get help to fix shit that never sholdnt have worked in the first place?????? I have a prety much hp world professionally and personally but I am constantly underwhelmed at the workability / useability of their stufff…..minly becaue my fiance is a mac head, and it works without the glitches, and it hurts me to saythat. mac have done what hp wanted to do, offered a reliable option. software is going multi platform, why??????? cos the cheap option sucks!!!! as great and powerful as my new envy15 is , i cant help but think i might have made a bad call….another $800= reliability and certanty v familarity and apathy……..

  • ANGRY AS HECK says:

    This blog is very old, but we just wanted to add that we’ve spent MONTHS trying to install an HP 6110 ALL IN ONE printer when our XP machine went kaput. STILL HAVE NOT SUCCEEDED, even though the actual CD install disk that came with the machine is being used to install the printer. So we went online and downloaded a huge file that was supposed to work with 6110 and of course, that didn’t work either. The closest we have come is to print in BLACK & WHITE! If we wanted B&W, we would’ve stuck with a laserjet.

    NOWHERE ONLINE is there anything to help solve this problem. Windows says it is installed, but when we try to print, all we get are blank pages shooting out. WHAT AN OUTRAGE! HP and MS both are PITAs who seem to delight in frustrating their customers. DA*N THEM!

  • Dick Dodger says:

    What I hate the most about my HP 5610 is it’s a pain to get a refilled print cartridge to work. I have learned some tricks like using alcohol and/or hot water to clean the print head and using a blow nozzle on an air compressor to prime/purge a particularly tough print head that refuses to unclog however I have yet to find aftermarket ink that doesn’t cause me problems after awhile that cause me to have to repeat the whole clearing the print head process (manually as I just described) again after a few days.

    I’d feel better about printers if the companies didn’t try to rob everyone on ink cartridges. I used to simply squirt the aftermarket ink into my old Cannon bubblejet and it worked until I finally wore out the cartridge and had to get a new on, but that old printer finally gave out.

    Other than that I’m miffed that I have to install the WHOLE HP printer suite to make it work and not just the printer driver itself alone… I despise all the bloatware included and I’m simply astounded that the “document viewer” simply goes to whatever document software you had installed anyway (like Adobe Reader for pdf files) … which the computer would have done anyway without the useless link.

  • Dick Dodger says:

    since my problem printer was made under Carly fiorina’s watch it amazes me that she thinks she’ll EVER be President …..LMAO..!!!!!!

  • Dick Dodger says:

    And look what I found on Google… lol

    http://www.hewlett-packard-sucks.com/

  • Srinandan says:

    I really appreciate your website! I spent a whole day trying to fix my drivers for HP. When I saw your website, I got relief that I wasn’t the only one. Maybe HP Will take note of your website and do something about it

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