Why can you not solve the printer driver issue with HP P1102w printers - there are thousands of them and none will run on Windows 10

After several days I solved this.
So, Microsoft is no help and HP is no help - so you are on your own.

Here's what you have to do:

1. clear all traces that you ever had the printer installed on your machine.

• Go to Settings, Devices, Printers & scanners>
• click on each copy of the HP printer on the list that does not work and delete it.
• On the right side of the box you will see "Print Server Properties"

follow this procedure:

1. Open Start and select "Settings > Devices > Printers and Scanners";

2. Under "Related settings", select "Print Server Properties";

3. Select the "Drivers" tab;

4. In the list of installed drivers, select the printer driver and click "Remove";

5. Select "Remove driver and driver package", and click Ok.

6. If you get a confirmation prompt to "Remove Driver Package", click "Delete".

IF IT DENIES DELETION BECAUSE IT IS STILL RUNNING -

Shut down your computer - restart - try again.

If still running try running the PC in safe mode - try again.

If you don't get it cleared your PC will always find these old drivers first and nothing will work - so clean the machine.

2. Go to the HP driver download site and download the Driver Install Package for your computer.

DO NOT OPEN IT OR INSTALL IT - we just need to extract one file out if it.

Download Winzip7

Use Winzip7 to extract the .inf driver file from the Download package.

Mine was called: HP1100.INF

if you have a different style HP printer find the .inf file that is close to the name of the printer in all caps.

Copy that file and place it in a separate folder.

OK - now the stupid part.

If you had a wireless installation previously and documented the ip. address of the printer - you can try to use that address.

If not - you have to use the HP installer, Install it as a wireless printer (that you know won't work) once installed:

follow this:

How to find a printer's IP address (Windows 10)

Open Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers.

Right-click the printer and select Properties.

Look in the Web Services tab for your IP address if only three tabs appear.

Alternatively, look in the Ports tab for your IP address if five tabs appear.

Write down the printer ip address.

Now go back and do step 1 again the get rid of the driver you just installed.

Once it is clean of old driver residue - we are ready to install.

Unplug your printer from the PC and unplug the power from the wall.

You do not need the printer - you are going to enter all the info manually.

Go to Settings, Devices, Printers & Scanners.

Click Add a printer or scanner

let it run. (ignore everything it suggests)

Click on : "The printer that I want isn't listed

go to the bottom of the box and click on : Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings

Click Next

"Use an existing port" is already highlighted. On the right click on the down arrow to show the list of ports.

Select the one that matches the ip address you previously wrote down. (ie) IP_ (YOUR IP) Advanced TCP/IP Port Monitor

if it is not there you will have to keep installing the Printer wirelessly using the HP installer until it appears.

once successful

Click Next

Click on "Have Disk"

Navigate to the inf driver you copied out of installer using WinZip7

Install it.

Run a test page.

You might see some errors but it should work.

Hope that helps someone.

They will work until you have to re-install office 365. Just never do anything to any of your machines that will require a re-install or you will have to work only on-Line. I had a hard drive issue - so had to re-install Office on my laptop. That's when the problems started. I could get everything to work except Outlook 365. They forced me to upgrade to Windows 10 to fix it. You can install Outlook 365 on Windows 7 but you have to go back and find the July 2002 version and disable updates. Good luck with that or if you have the original discs - just don't run automatic updates after the re-install. if you try to install the latest downloaded Office 365 on Windows 7 - you get error messages. Outlook will not install.

Mobile Printing Capability HP ePrint; Apple AirPrint™; Wireless Direct printing Connectivity, standard 1 Hi-Speed USB 2.0; 1 WiFi 802.11b/g

Actually, I need to edit this as it looks like that printer can't be configured to use wifi without the manufacturer software. If it can do it without it then you have a chance of using it. Otherwise, you can get a new printer and stop struggling lol.

Of course, technically, you might be able to get access to an older computer with Windows and see if you can configure it to the wifi but its possibly getting into too much effort.

You can also use Linux where it will most likely be working today. Don't know if you can configure the wifi from there but it should print from there via USB. But, I think that's too advanced for you.

The chance that you have if you can get the printer connected to wifi:

I believe it has a wifi button on it yes? If so, you should hopefully be able to simply press that, and along with some more network stuff, get it to connect to your wifi. See the manual for how to deal with that button.

As long as you don't need their software and drivers to connect it to wifi, Windows should hopefully then find it on your network and offer a working driver and use of it via Windows Settings for Printers.

You don't need the manufacturer drivers and software this way as Windows provides its own compatible networking one. That printer is quite old so I don't know if it will work or not but quite sure it should if it has wireless printing and wifi capability.

Its that simple if it has wifi, if you get it connected, and if it works despite the age :)

Hi David,

My name is Igor, it's a pleasure for me to help others and I'll do all my best to help you.

I'm very sorry for disappointing you but Microsoft writes only so-called standard drivers - standard mouse driver, generic modem driver and so on. This is because the description of standard devices is published. Writing any specific driver for a certain hardware requires internal information about this device operation, its internal commands and so on. But they are not publicly available. So, it is hardware manufacturer who have to write drivers for its hardware. Please ask HP for the driver.

Some companies have contracts with Microsoft to include their drivers to Windows installation media, but this requires additional work of both Microsoft and manufacturer, so manufacturers may ignore some older devices to save a resources.

Support includeing any updates for win7 ended Jan 2020.

If HP do not support drivers for their device for win 10 its not going to fuction correctly.

I still have some win10 PC's all functiong without any issues with O365