How to spend an hour goofing off...

[Supreme Cmdr]

I have a Xerox M940 (all-in-one) printer/scanner/coffee maker etc etc and after I installed SP3, it would only print garbage. Sometimes it won't print at all. Period. And other times it would just barf up several blank pages.

I have been talking with Xerox since the day I installed SP3 (on 08-04) and they're as clueless as anything. No surprise that their SOHO unit has been shutdown and these printers no longer supported etc.

They told me that I should uninstall SP3 and go back to SP2 because Xerox will *not* be releasing new drivers for this printer. I bought this printer back in February. Sorry, but I didn't know any better.

In the end, I had a brainstorm. Seeing that the print driver interface for winXP isn't that much different (if at all) from win2K, I decided to take a chance and use these drivers.

What follows is an adventure in itself, told only by someone with obviously too much time on his hands :

[*]I downloaded the winXP drivers for this printer from xerox.com

[*]uninstalled the Xerox win2K drivers from control panel. This also uninstalled Pagis and Textbridge. Gee, look!! co-ordination.

[*]shutdown, turned the power off (...its the only way to be sure)

[*]unplugged the printer's power and unplugged the USB cable from the computer

[*]booted up

[*]saved registry (as I was about to do obscene things to it)

[*]went on a search and destroy mission in my registry for anything with 'xerox', 'pagis', 'textbridge' or 'm940' and deleted all occurences. I used no less than three tools to get the job done, including manual edits.

[*]rebooted

[*]saved the registry (now devoid of this abomination)

[*]installed the winXP drivers for the M940. I was also prompted for the original printer CD-ROM btw. If you've lost yours, you're as screwed as the Taliban.

This is where it got tricky. Normally when you install the win2K drivers, after the reboot, you would be prompted to plug in the printer, it will get tested etc etc. This didn't happen. No siree bob, nothing should be that easy.

After the reboot from printer install, the only evidence of a printer install that I could see, was the Pagis inbox on the desktop. The control centre wasn't in the tray.

So, I simply reached out and plugged in the USB cable. Win2K coughed up something about detecting the printer and auto-magically extracted the drivers - from God only knows where - and copied them over.

I was too scared to watch, so I didn't notice where the drivers came from. I suspect that all it did was resume whatever it was the now croaked Xerox printer install was supposed to have been doing after prompting me to plug in the printer (which, of course, it didn't do).

Xerox install then pops-up, as if from a slumber, and decided to join the fray by volunteering to run the tests it normally would. Never miind that, at this time, the printer control centre icon in the tray, had a nice slash in it, indicating that it was offline and not communicating with the computer (though it was very much alive and prepped to cough up hairballs on cue).

By this time, I was near catatonic because the anticipation had literally frozen the left side of my brain, leaving the right side with only thoughts of what movie I was going to go see tonite. Go figure.

All the tests came back with a PASS. At this point, I almost collapsed. Thank God for the fresh cup of coffee I had somehow managed to hang on to through this whole ordeal, without so much as even taking a sip.

After staring at the screen in disbelief, not realizing that I had somehow succeeded in taking a sip without burning something, most of all, my ass - I came to the conclusion that the xerox guys were brilliant! Somehow, they managed to communicate telepathically to a printer that, for all intent and purpose, didn't exist as far as Bill Gates and his printer driver cronies were concerned. Oh well. Thank the Lord for small miracles.

I finally decided to hit the OK button to reboot - all the while fearfull that the next time I saw my nice win2K desktop, it would be shrouded in a haze of brightly colored blue pixels, nicely woven together to form the infamous BSOD - whose monotony is broken only by the equally lifeless and nerve shattering White text display indicating, of all things, that your ass, as you knew it, was grass. This, in itself, sending a terse message to your seemingly malfunctioning brain : "Got Backup?" or better yet "Got Milk"? (cuz you'd need to suck on a cow's tits to recover from this farce without a backup or ERD). Since cow tits are in short supply where I live, I have a foolproof backup strategy at all times. Worse case scenario, I could restore from yesterday's OS backup.

I decided to leave the room. At first, I wanted to go pee. Then I decided that I'd probably only end up peeing all over the seat, considering the state my nerves were in. So, I decide to make a beeline for the coffee machine - nevermind the fact that my cup was still practically full. Any excuse to walk away from the machine was good enough for me. Though I did consider reading my copy of Maximum PC which had just come in. But to do that at my desk, would mean sneaking a peek at the screen and probably shattering my nerves even more.

So coffee it was

When I came back, the machine was all booted up, control center icon was fine and and and and the printer wasn't coughing up smoke or anything.

I decided to go pee after all

When I came back, I made a beeline for Win2K control panel, checked the printer properties to make sure this wasn't some horrible joke. Sure enough, it was all there. I check the print processor mode to make sure it was set correctly. It wasn't. It was set to print in RAW format. So I changed it to PMJOURNAL, didn't touch *anything* else and did a test page print.

Watching the printer shudder from side to side (if you own one of these, you know what I'm talking about) and making really loud and odd noises (the staple of the Xerox printers), the thought crossed my mind that any minute now, it would choke up an ink jet cartridge or something. So much for hairballs. But, by this time, I had an almost empty coffee cup, just in case an airborne ink jet cart needed a software landing.

The test page came out just fine. For good measure, I printed a document from Word. That came ok too. At this point, I had my confidence back and decided to go all out. And tried scanning something, running OCR etc etc. I mean, the works. However, I did resist the urge to scan my butt and fax it Xerox.. By the time I was done, I'd lost the good part of an hour, had a pounding headache and I was just about ready to call up Xerox and cuss the freckles off the first person to pick up the phone.

Instead I called them up, gave the guy (Mike) my problem number. At which point, the bastard asked me to go fetch my printer's serial number because as far as he knew, all these printers were out of warranty. This is the part where I was about to either (a) be shafted for money on a support call or ( given a verbal enema about the merits of buying products from a dying or well, dead, company. Nevermind the fact that since the beginning of August when I first reported this problem to Xerox and the lady (Wendy) had been helping me, that there was an entire history (which he was reading from), right there on the screen.. No, he wanted to start from scratch. Such incompetence should be rewarded with a Pink slip, don't you think.

Anyway, after I had curtly told him that, not only did I have *no* intentions of going back to that printer (for fear that I'd just upset the poor printer by creating a disturbance in the farce) and that I wanted him to STOP tallking and just LISTEN - I told him that I had found a fix for the win2K SP3 problem with the M940/.950 printers. He listened and informed me that he would pass this info along so that the 'solutions' people could post something online. Midway into his speech, which I had no intentions of listening to. I promptly hung up, went back to my printer and gave it a nice cleaning.

That is all. Enjoy your weekend folks!

[ 08-23-2002, 09:25 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Cmdr Nova]

LOL!

Nice little adventure, there, SC.

Hm... The only experience I've had even remotely similar to this was when my old (well, bleeding edge, at the time) 133mhz Pentium Packard Bell computer got all f***ed up, and our restore CD was corrupted. Yeah... Had to order another restore CD... Twice.

lol.

[Guest Fox__Trot]

I had one of those but bought a new printer when i got my xp machine I think I gave it to my sister who wants to run win ME

[Guest rtoolooze]

LMAO

That was funny as hell! You should of scanned your butt and sent it to Xerox anyway, he he.

they deserve it.

[Charles Lindsey]

That's truly frightening. Sounds like some of my adventures.

I have a theorem about this kind of stuff. "It's broke anyway and ya can't hurt it no worse." So just throw crud at it till it either chokes or finds something it likes and starts working. hehe.

[Guest]

Yep, when my machine choked, I did everything I could to fix it. Finally said screw it, formatted the damn thing and started over.

That was funny SC, you should write about such things more often!!

Xerox ought to be paying you for finding a fix.

[echo]

I love this story. It almost beats the video card issue I had, when you got annoyed with the guy at gateway.

You know, next time you have time to kill you should tape yourself talking to a bad Customer Service Rep. I think it's priceless!!!!

[Guest Grayfox]

hehe the jerky boys all over again.

i hate idiot tech support people... thats why i dont call them anymore, ill call my cuz who knows a hell of alot more than they do.

[Kevin Trotter]

Ahhh...Okay so next time pee sitting down and what movie did you go see and lastly all that only took an hour? Every time I read one of those techie post I fell even older and dumber. Thanks for the confidence boost.

PS. Wouldn't you hate to be the dullard tech support guy taking the SC's call? It's like Resnig's revenge...they are probably the progenitors to the old incompetent one. I just hope the SC hasn't screwed up the space time continum

[Guest Grayfox]

ever seen the internet toilet Race??? hehe its one of those pee jugs they give you in a hospital so you can whizz without ever leaving your chair at the desk.

now if i can only get my 100' of network cable and laptop idea patented...

[Rosko]

lol SC

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Race Bannon IV:

Ahhh...Okay so next time pee sitting down

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ahahaha, uhm, no thanks.

quote:

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and what movie did you go see

---

I haven't been to the movies in two weeks actually. I've been busy with mp and also I've been a tad under the weather. My daughter catches everything at school. And soon enough, we all catch it. This time, it must have been the umpteenth time I've got a cold from her. To the extent that I'm considering sending to school in an armor suit.

quote:

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and lastly all that only took an hour?

---

Yep. Its not like I was timing it or anything, but before I started, I made a mental note that I had a phone meeting (with a distributor) in an hour. And I finished just before the call came.

[Epsilon 5]

My printer broke recently. what happpened.

Open the printer. Try to print. Doesn't work. Smooth little woman voice says in french that there's a problem. Anything new?

Both lights at the top flahs. That's means there's definitely a problem. I mean, not like "out of ink, paper, badly connected printer"

I open the printer's hood. The tray comes up front automatically. I remove the cartriges. i notice the tray is not "fixed" anymore. Iit moves a little in a way that it shoudln't.

After fooling with it for a few mins, I give my diagnostic to my mother : it's broken

Damn that Lexmark z22 didn't even lasted 6 MONTHS. Next time I take a Canon or Epson.

[GREG MILLER]

Sounds like we had the same weekend SC.

I've been fighting with a Win2k Reinstall since Saturday. My problem started when I was toying around with the Video Capture functions of my new GF4 card. I figured I'd convert my Parents' 60th birthday into a CD, so I could ship it out to my sister in California. The video captured just like it should, so I then proceeded to burn a test CDRW. In the middle of the burn, I decided to play with the camera while I waited. Well curiosity certainly killed this cat. As soon as I launched the Video Capture program, my machine immeadiately had a fit, and Win2k, kindly gave me a BOSD for my troubles. Looking at this, I knew I screwed up. The disk in the burner, was not my concern, as I would just erase, and reburn. I pushed the "Reset" button on my box, and awaited for the reboot. Win2k started up and I thought maybe I did no damage. Then I logged into my personal account and Win2k then revealed that my profile was corrupted, and I should contact my system admin. "I am the admin!", came to mind. I logged out, and logged into the administator account. Saved all my personal account settings, and deleted that account. Rebooted, and created a new account, restored my settings. Went to reboot, and again, same message of a corrupted profile. Needless to say, I just formated my Win2k install, and decided to start fresh. This is where the fun begins. I put my Win2k disk into the drive, and my PC booted with it. After the blue screen with all the words going by at teh bottom, it ended with "Starting Windows 2000." Normally this is where the Setup program began, but not this time. My screen went blank, and the machine stood frozen. Since Saturday, I've been trying to find out why it will not install. I've even reformated both of my HDD's, and recreated the 3 partitions on the 20giger. Nothing worked. When I got home from work yesterday, I was starting to think Hardware. I took out my NIC, Modem, and Sound Card, and again, could go no further. I looked at the GF3 sitting on my scanner, waiting for a new home in the wife's new machine that has yet to be built (I have all the parts, just not any time.). So, I replaced the GF4, with the GF3, and rebooted. I was so happy to see that Win2k was ready, willing and able to be installed. With this knowledge, I jumped on the trusty Packard Bell and searched for an answer to my dilema while Win2k was installing on my machine. I've seen mention of multiple vidcards, being a culprut, but the GF4 has mulitple monitor support built in.

Does anybody know how I can get around this issue in the future should I again have to do this? Ripping apart hardware, is not an option if I can help it. Thanks for all the help.

I am also considering Emailing Gainward about this issue. If I do, this will be only the second time I've had to call tech support; the first was 3 years ago with a cranky modem that didn't like the Packard Bell....The modem went back to the store.

[ 08-27-2002, 01:02 PM: Message edited by: Greg Miller ]