Driver bloatware
by Volker Weber
If there is any reason to not buy HP hardware, it is HP software. If you want to use a more recent HP scanner, you need to install some hundred megabyte of software on your Mac. One of the things it does is to add a background task to your machine that not only takes up 3.7% of your CPU:
It also prevents the system from properly going to sleep. It also does not add itself to the login items as the documentation suggests. It rather creates a new folder inside /Library which contains a program to launch the HP Scanjet Manager at login. Remove that folder and you can still use your scanner. Without the CPU hog in the background.
Corollary: If there is any reason not to buy Microsoft hardware, it is because it only runs under Windows. The LifeChat is a case in point. I am going to shelf it until somebody forces me to use Windows. PCs don't come with decent hardware for internet phone calls so it will come in handy then.
Comments
Wasn't it you who told me that it wouldn't be "pc", "in", "whatever" to buy HP hardware anymore? I guess that was for a good reason back then and it looks like it's still valid today ;)
I made the same experience a few years back when i thought buying a HP LJ 3100, a laser printer/fax/sw-scanner combo, would be a good idea. Worst idea ever, the printing was fine, but the drivers? When upgrading to Win2K from Win98 you needed to BUY the drivers from HP. And guess what happened when XP came out? Yupp, same story again, buy new drivers. But with a few tricks you could get the 2K drivers get to work under XP. But the drivers also prevented hibernation mode. Total crap, now only in use if i need a fax.
Same experience with a PSC 2500 printer combo. It is definitely not possible to apply any of the available driver / software updates or to use the automatic update procedure. Uninstall, clean the registry, delete every file that could have to do with HP and so on - no way. That means for me: never again HP.
"If there is any reason to not buy HP hardware, it is HP software."
That sums it up perfectly. Whether its monitoring software for printers, or scan drivers and all the stuff accompanied with it - it's a pain! If I have to install drivers for HP hardware, I always look out for the smallest software package on their website. And never touch the CD that ships with the product!
Add to the list my sister's HP Pavillion laptop. Nice machine, but the registration software is a real PITA: it constantly bugs her to register the laptop even though she has done so (repeatedly).
It runs a load of other services under the covers too, and some of these appear to be daemons to look after HP software updates, so I'm loathe to remove the offending software. Combine that with the other crap that comes with a new machine, and HP are nearly as bad as Dell!
I had to install some software on a new HP laptop for a friend last week.
Never seen so much junk and advertising preinstalled on a new machine.
Every vendor does it (and it's an insult to people who just spend quite a
bit of money on a new computer) but HP seems to be particularly bad.
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