Having to throw away a perfectly good printer - is there a way out?

robt_2

Jolanta_Nowak wrote: »

I can find no sign on the Lexmark website of any driver downloads available now or in future for my Z11 printer to render it compatible with the Vista OS running on my newly bought pc.

To me this is a prime example of deliberate, built-in obsolescence. The printer is only 7 years old, works perfectly and does the simple job I ask of it - printing off my pc screen - very well. Lexmark obviously can't give a damn.

Is there any way I can get round this, does anyone know?

This might be a dumb question, but have you actually tried it? As another poster has said VIsta has a built in driver.

'only 7 years old' - that is old in todays world!

totalsolutions

All my printers/modems/scanners worked right through from Win 3.0/NT/to XP then the HP 850c gave out trying Vista. They were also over 8 yrs old. By then son had new printers so these were shared out and my printers put in moth balls. So I gave in to vista, the HP site said they would not support printers over 7 yrs.

superscaper

totalsolutions wrote: »

All my printers/modems/scanners worked right through from Win 3.0/NT/to XP then the HP 850c gave out trying Vista. They were also over 8 yrs old. By then son had new printers so these were shared out and my printers put in moth balls. So I gave in to vista, the HP site said they would not support printers over 7 yrs.

But it may have been supported by Vista's native drivers exactly as the OP's lexmark printer is.

ormus

only 7 yrs old?
that is ancient in the IT world.
i uprgraded my puter a while ago now to a 3ghz cpu. its now obsolete in todays terms.

ive actually heard of 3 gig puters on freecycle!

totalsolutions

<Homer Simpson> Doh!
More work to try it out, will give it a go later, thanks!

uktyler

My mother got a new computer, but her old printer, a lexmark all in one would not work. It was 18 months old, but was not Vista compatable. I asked Lexmark, and they just told me they had not written a driver, and were not going to, and to throw the printer away!
We passed the printer onto a charity, they can use it until the inks run out and then bin it.
We got a new printer, but it was not a Lexmark, and we will never buy from them again.
The printer was still for sale new from Ebuyer, with no warnings it was not compatable.

Lexmark don't give a damn about customers, the reply from them to a letter of complaint was we don't write drivers for printers we don't make anymore, no apology, no offer of a discount on a new printer, not even advice on how to recycle the old one (which we asked for)

superscaper

uktyler wrote: »

My mother got a new computer, but her old printer, a lexmark all in one would not work. It was 18 months old, but was not Vista compatable. I asked Lexmark, and they just told me they had not written a driver, and were not going to, and to throw the printer away!
We passed the printer onto a charity, they can use it until the inks run out and then bin it.
We got a new printer, but it was not a Lexmark, and we will never buy from them again.
The printer was still for sale new from Ebuyer, with no warnings it was not compatable.

Lexmark don't give a damn about customers, the reply from them to a letter of complaint was we don't write drivers for printers we don't make anymore, no apology, no offer of a discount on a new printer, not even advice on how to recycle the old one (which we asked for)

Going by what I've looked up for the OP my guess was that your printer was compatible after all. You just had to use the drivers built into Vista rather than user the Lexmark installation cd.

Jolanta_Nowak

Just wanted to say thans to people for their replies.

To answer a common question - I've not had the chance to check out whether Vista (home basic version) will drive the Z11 as I haven't had the hardware delivery from Dell as yet!