Windows 10 - free upgrade to those with PC using Windows 7 or 8

[kennyc]

Oh but back on topic.....I was having weird things go on with my internet....the icon in the task bar was the wired connection instead of the wireless connection. My wired connection is not even connected. I thought I'd just unplug the USB wireless adapter and man....bluescreen of death on Win 10 -- I haven't seen anything like that in ages. It tried to reboot after doing a dump and then said 'missing operating system' -- if that doesn't make your heart skip a beat nothing will.....I manually shut it down with the power button, turned it back on and it went through a couple of updating and rebooting cycles....and then finally came up normally and appears to be working with the exception that I am having issues on some (not all!) pages loading slowly - images mostly. But the speed tests tell me all upload/download is good.

I'm thinking this is Comcast as I've seen it before and we had a big snowstorm here last night. And that may have even caused the original problem of the PC switching from wireless to wired --- or trying to.

And the second thing I'm never going to do again is to unplug the wireless USB adapter...even though I used to have to do that all the time under Win 7 when it would lock up. I've not had the issue with win 10.

I'll see if it clears up (the slow loading) tomorrow and go from there.

Carry on...

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by wodin

It would seem that Epson is abandoning the Gillette model of monetizing the consumables in favor of taking the profit up front. That might be a good thing for high usage customers, but for the average home user who might print ten to one hundred pages per month it's not very economical (unless they're like my wife who's favorite key combination is ctrl-P). I'm not sure where the cross over in terms of print volume is, but a $100US printer that I might use 3 sets of cartridges in it's lifetime is still cheaper than a $500US printer. Besides, at some point the non replaceable print heads are bound to get clogged up.

For low volume, seldom printing ink is not really economical any way you look at it. If you are willing to spend $100 on a printer and don't need color might as well just get a cheap wireless laser printer. Printing photos (where I could see color being necessary) at home with an inkjet is rather expensive when you look at the cost of ink and good paper. Much cheaper and better quality by outsourcing printing photos to Walmart (or any other convenience store of your choice). Who prints out photos anymore regularly? It is not necessary to print so you can share them or show them off. If I hang a picture on the wall, I personally don't skimp on quality by printing it at home. Want anything bigger than 8x10? Good luck at home. Poster size print - e.g. a 36x24? Close to impossible at home unless you got more money than sense.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by wodin

It would seem that Epson is abandoning the Gillette model of monetizing the consumables in favor of taking the profit up front. That might be a good thing for high usage customers, but for the average home user who might print ten to one hundred pages per month it's not very economical

This seems to be a trend. Two years ago I have purchased HP Officejet Pro 8600 e-All-in-One Printer.
Due to my previous experiences with ink printers I was very reluctant, but my very good friend that sells printers persuaded me to try it and I am very satisfied. The printer is more expensive than those very old inkjets with tiny, insanely expensive cartridges [ink+printhead] that kept clogging or drying up when you did not print regularly. Yet, it is economical even for a household that prints only occasional homework for kids or rare piece of official paperwork.

This Epson eco-tank looks very interesting if you print high volumes.

HP Officejet Pro 8600 seems to have a bit more expensive ink, but the price for printer was a fraction of what they ask for those eco-tank business models. The ink is separate from printhead.

I do not know how the 8600 series perform with W10, but with older windows they work perfectly - apart from the fact that you need to install insanely huge drivers from HP - hundreds of megabytes. They can also print through Internet when registered on HP servers, which is great for people with chromebooks or tablets. I have never tried that. Setup in Linux, even in wired or WiFi network mode, is very simple and easy [no hundred of megabytes of HP drivers] and they can scan to USB or print from USB if you need to use them in emergency.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

For low volume, seldom printing ink is not really economical any way you look at it. If you are willing to spend $100 on a printer and don't need color might as well just get a cheap wireless laser printer. Printing photos (where I could see color being necessary) at home with an inkjet is rather expensive when you look at the cost of ink and good paper. Much cheaper and better quality by outsourcing printing photos to Walmart (or any other convenience store of your choice). Who prints out photos anymore regularly? It is not necessary to print so you can share them or show them off. If I hang a picture on the wall, I personally don't skimp on quality by printing it at home. Want anything bigger than 8x10? Good luck at home. Poster size print - e.g. a 36x24? Close to impossible at home unless you got more money than sense.

Yep, I love my Brother 2270DW wireless laser printer - $100 (toner cartridge $50) - I've been using it for three years printing double sided pages. No problems/issues.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yep, I love my Brother 2270DW wireless laser printer - $100 (toner cartridge $50) - I've been using it for three years printing double sided pages. No problems/issues.

My Brother HL-5470DW has been doing pretty well for the last couple years as well. I just changed the toner for the first time this week.

My only hope is that it lasts as long as the HP Laserjet 5 that it replaced, but I doubt it will.

We do have a fairly new Canon multifunction inkjet they we use for photos, projects, and as a scanner/fax, but as DT says, when we need a bunch of photos printed, they get uploaded to Costco.

I actually need to call Canon support sometime soon because of a recurring problem. Sad.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ApK

My Brother HL-5470DW has been doing pretty well for the last couple years as well. I just changed the toner for the first time this week.

My only hope is that it lasts as long as the HP Laserjet 5 that it replaced, but I doubt it will.

Thanks, that's good to hear. I'm a little annoyed at Dell, because I have an absolutely excellent Dell Photo 926 printer/scanner which there's no support for beyond Windows 7 (in fact Dell seem to have stopped selling this type of device entirely). It's really annoying to have to throw away a device I've been happily using for years due to lack of driver support.

[cvkemp]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, that's good to hear. I'm a little annoyed at Dell, because I have an absolutely excellent Dell Photo 926 printer/scanner which there's no support for beyond Windows 7 (in fact Dell seem to have stopped selling this type of device entirely). It's really annoying to have to throw away a device I've been happily using for years due to lack of driver support.

Harry I worked for Dell and you are right, Dell is that way and what is worse they will not even support their laptops or computers beyond the OS that came on it. We are lucky that Microsoft and Linux does add the older drivers to the installs so they work. Now if you bought Dell's enterprise level laptops, and computers, etc then you would get support. But if you do like me and buy the customer level products then you are just screwed.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, that's good to hear. I'm a little annoyed at Dell, because I have an absolutely excellent Dell Photo 926 printer/scanner which there's no support for beyond Windows 7 (in fact Dell seem to have stopped selling this type of device entirely). It's really annoying to have to throw away a device I've been happily using for years due to lack of driver support.

Did you try this procedure? There's an early post by RockSt☆r-Rick with another at the end with a clarifying picture.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yep, I love my Brother 2270DW wireless laser printer - $100 (toner cartridge $50) - I've been using it for three years printing double sided pages. No problems/issues.

Same here, with my Brother 7070DW. Printing perfectly, and is just now running low on toner after 2,5 years (could be 3,5 even, don't really know).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

Did you try this procedure? There's an early post by RockSt☆r-Rick with another at the end with a clarifying picture.

Thanks for the link. I've not tried anything, because I've not yet upgraded to Windows 10, but I'll certainly try it when I buy a Windows 10 machine, which should be in the next few weeks.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yep, I love my Brother 2270DW wireless laser printer - $100 (toner cartridge $50) - I've been using it for three years printing double sided pages. No problems/issues.

Another Brother fan here:
MFC 8820DN (wired Net) on 2nd drum and 4th High capacity toner. Lots of use
Note : you also could Network Fax and Scan with this in XP (and somewhat with a painful Linux install). Worked good, the wife uses frequently.

Not sure which OS the Net Scan support went away (The Scanner is acknowledged if I run a USB cord in W10, but that defeats the purpose of having network access)

HL 3040CN Color Laser (wired net) Getting ready to start the second set of replacement toners (after the starter set)

What is really sad is this unit will be discarded when the Belt, Waste bin and drums need changing. Why. a set costs almost 2 times the price of a new model

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, that's good to hear. I'm a little annoyed at Dell, because I have an absolutely excellent Dell Photo 926 printer/scanner which there's no support for beyond Windows 7 (in fact Dell seem to have stopped selling this type of device entirely). It's really annoying to have to throw away a device I've been happily using for years due to lack of driver support.

I had a perfectly good laser printer from HP that I had to give up because there was no Windows 8 64-bit support for it and the Windows 8 devices we have would not work with it.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I had a perfectly good laser printer from HP that I had to give up because there was no Windows 8 64-bit support for it and the Windows 8 devices we have would not work with it.

To some extent it's funny. Sometimes, old devices seem to work forever. One guy whose computer I maintain uses a Laserjet HP 4L bought more than 20 years ago. It still works with Windows 8.1 without the need to install any additional drivers.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

To some extent it's funny. Sometimes, old devices seem to work forever. One guy whose computer I maintain uses a Laserjet HP 4L bought more than 20 years ago. It still works with Windows 8.1 without the need to install any additional drivers.

Yes, basic printers seem to work fine. It's the "smart" multifunction devices that need fancy drivers.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, basic printers seem to work fine. It's the "smart" multifunction devices that need fancy drivers.

Some of the higher-end printers have drivers that are over 500MB. The same goes for nVidia. The current drivers are just over 300MB. Sometimes I wonder what's in there. Do they package the drivers, control center, and all the other stuff 25 times or so? Nobody there ever heard of language files or something?

Even mouse drivers are like 75MB or thereabouts. Where are the days that mouse drivers came as a MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS file, barely 20 kB large? If you had both a printer and a sound card, you would have to make sure that they weren't both on IRQ 5 or 7 at the same time to get them to work.

Ah, the simple days...