Packard 880c drivers

[tiler]

Hi

Am running a stripped down version of xp without any drivers and want to install an 880c inkjet. HP dont do an xp driver and say the driver is included with windows.

Can I extract and use the driver from within windows and if so how ?? THIS IS QUITE LIKELY ON THE FORUM I AM JUST NOT SURE OF THE TERMINOLOGY

On the off chance does anyone have this driver or know where I might lay my hands on it ??

regards

tiler

[jaclaz]

Basically, you need to have (of course) an original XP CD.

The files you are interested in are NTPRINT.inf and DRIVER.cab, they are both in the \I386 directory.

Use the Add printer dialog, click "Have disk" or Driver disk", cannot remember the English caption right now, and point it to the %CD%\I386\NTPRINT.inf and install the printer normally.

Alternatively, you can copy the NTPRINT.INF file to hard disk, make a second copy of it renaming it to, say, HP880C.INF, open it in notepad, search for the relevant info and edit it accordingly:

in the "Manufacturer Section":

delete all manufacturers but HP

in "Models section":

delete all other manufacturers and all HP models but "HP DeskJet 880C" in the [HP] subsection

Delete "Previous Names" section

in "OEM URLS"

delete all but hp one

in "Installer Sections" delete everything but the entry referenced in "Models section"

if the entry in "Installer sections" begins with Copyfile=@ you can delete the entire "Copy files" section.

in the "Source Disk Section", in subsection [sourceDisksFiles] delete all entries but those found in "Installer sections".

With some "logical" trial and error, you should be able to delete some more unneeded entries.

Now use a program capable of opening .CAB files (7-zip is the one I use) and extract from DRIVER.CAB to hard disk, in the same folder where HP880C.INF is, the files referenced in the entries you kept in HP880C.inf.

You might need some trial and error before having it fully functional, but with a little patience you should be able to get it working.

Once you have everything working, you should be able to make a new .CAB files with all files but HP880C.INF and, correcting the info in [sourceDisksNames.x86], have it compressed and functional.

jaclaz

P.S.: rather obviously, if you stripped "too much" from your install, i.e. as an example the "Add printer" capability, the above might not work.

Edited May 1, 2007 by jaclaz