HP Laser Jet 1000 for Vista - Solution

If you are like most consumers who have an HP Laser Jet 1000 Series Printer and discovered that it no longer functions in Microsoft Vista, then you are not alone.

Unfortunately, HP has decided not to provide a printer driver update for Vista for this commercial grade printer.

With 3 HP printers of differing types, it was a great disappointment to me to think that HP would abandon customers like us, especially since this particular printer was built to last for many more years to come.

My attempts to contact HP were time consuming and futile. I received emails from thier do-not-reply staff, citing they no longer provide support for this printer. There attitude was very unprofessional. Actually what they were stating is that HP no longer supports its customers who want to use this printer.

Also after reviewing the HP forums for a self help solution, I found many unresolved postings requesting for a solution to this world wide problem.

Unfortunately, most of the replies to the postings were misleading. Responders were making unfounded statements and excuses like, Vista could no longer support host based printing and Vista could only print to the more expensive Post Script Printers and PCL printers. Such misleading information only benefitted HP if people believed the faulty information as true and correct and replaced their LJ1000's with more expensive printers.

So what are the solutions then?

Firstly, one might avoid future problems with HP and switch brands, like to Brother Printers. These seem to be reliable and cost effective.

Secondly, little point in believing that you can ascertain assistance from HP with your LJ1000 printer. We are just simply whiners and should just go an buy another printer from them.

Thirdly the method / solution for making your HP Laser Jet 1000 compatible in Vista is basically simple. Connect the LJ1000 printer to a slower 1.0 USB Hub instead of directly into your pc.

For this particular resolution a Belkin F5U021 USB Hub was the key to success. I had put it away some time ago, since i beleived everything would be compatible with usb 2.0 technology.

In any case, once the hub was connected, Vista automatically installed the HP Laser Jet 1000 driver, the driver designed for WinXP. Printing to and from Vista and to the Laser Jet 1000 resumed as normally as it was in WinxXP.

So why did the slower hub work?

After some research, it seems that hubs like this particular model regulate the flow of data between the operating system and the devices connected to the hub. It is unclear if a different brand or differing type of hub would work as well. But I believe the critical aspect of this solution is to slow down the data rate to 1.0 so that the Laser Jet and Vista can negotiate data transfer and print.

In conclusion:

I did send HP my discovery, but got a reply citing they no longer support this printer. If I could have replied to their message, my response would be simply stated: UP YOURS, HP!

I hope this solution is helpful to you as well. I have reiterated the solution on the HP forums, Microsoft newsgroups and the Belkin Company, the maker of the 1.o hub.

The problem that we may now encounter is that the HP Laser Jet 1000 is discontinued. So we may experience a problem with finding the toner for them.

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