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by zeropoint46 1395 days ago
I have an HP deskjet f4210 and it doesn't work with windows 11 at all. Gave my wife a new laptop with windows 11 and there are exactly 0 drives anywhere to be found for it. Can't even re-use windows 10 drivers. However, they will run you through about 5 different tools and HP accounts and personal information gathering while trying to "find" drivers for it. Sure, I get it, super old printer, but it works just fine for what we need it for, why upgrade just cause we are using a new OS?
2 comments
bayindirh 1395 days ago
Just from top of my head:

Why not connect to a Raspberry pi or an Orange Pi zero and share it via CUPS? CUPS will make it a mDNS enabled, "driverless" printer, which can be used from any device (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and your toaster)?

If you want wireless, don't use OrangePi Zero (1) though. Its wireless is not supported well under Linux.

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zeropoint46 1395 days ago
yeah, I had an older rpi and I did that for a bit, but I couldn't get scanning work on it well or the way I wanted, plus the older PI was super slow. I'll probably revisit this in the future. However this whole thread had me track down some drivers for the printer and now it works. Seems like what HP now does on their site when you select windows 10 or 11 or even 7, is just say, windows update has the driver, you're good. However, if it's not "officially" approved by MSFT then its not in the windows update as is the case with this printer. So I found some raw bundle of drivers, extracted them and windows was able to manually locate the driver file. I just want HP to host that file so that I know it's trustworthy, and honestly, why shouldn't they host their own driver files?
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CamperBob2 1395 days ago
How do they keep Windows 10 drivers from working? I've never heard of any Windows 10-compatible devices that don't work in 11.
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