Microsoft has put a fair bit of effort over the years into getting Windows
to recognize the presence of new hardware nad step users through the process
of installing the necessary drivers.  Some peripheral nmanufacturers do a
good job of coding their driver software installation to hook seamlessly
into this process.

  Other manufacturers -- and, in my experience, HP ius at the head of this
list! -- simply cannot work with Micrososft's framework, and require that
you install their driver software BEFORE connecting their hardware.
Attempting to connect the hardware first and use the standard Windows
mechanisms leads to a situation where the drivers more-or-less appear to be
installed, but do not work.

  To recover, you need to both remove the drivers (through the Control Panel
Add/Remove function) and disconnect the hardware, and then run the setup
routine from the driver disk/CD before re-connecting the device.

David Gillett


On 31 Jul 2005 at 14:59, Miriam Glickman wrote:

> A few months back, I purchased a new system with XP pro.  My old
>  system had 98 SE and I had both an HP deskjet 6122 and the HP
>  officejet g-85 connected to it. I had one of the Dell representatives
>  come and transfer files from my old computer to the new system.  I
>  immediately installed the deskjet but have not had the time to mess
>  with the officejet until recently.
>
>  The first thing that I found was that the system was showing the
>  officejet installed but not for the printer only the scanner part.  I
>  unstalled it through the control panel and rebooted.
>
>  The next thing was that I found the installation disc was not for XP
>  so I hunted around HP until I found the installation download and got
>  that.
>
>  Then I was ready (or so at least I thought)!  I have tried setting it
>  up several times and each time I receive a box telling me that I have
>  already installed the officejet XP drivers, etc.
>
>  I tried using the add printer and it gives me the error "bad structure
>  ini file".
>
>  I have run a search for "hp" on my system and it gives me a LOT of files.
>
>  HELP!!!!  Thanks so much!!!
>
>  Miriam

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