Sometimes you have to support older devices. Sometimes doing so is painful with newer equipment. My latest problem was with Windows 7 32 bit and a HP LaserJet 4000TN. I was trying to set up a TCP/IP connection, but Windows 7 did not have the drivers. If windows update works for you, press windows update and the driver will be in the list. This is clearly the easiest way to install it. Unfortunately for me, something wonky is keeping me from downloading the driver list from windows update, so I did it manually. This is also very helpful for an offline install of the printer.
Open IE and go to the microsoft windows update catalog. This is Internet Explorer 6 and later ONLY.
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/
Search for the printer you want. In my case it was “HP LaserJet 4000″ without the quotes. Exactly what I want, at the top of the list!
Title - Microsoft driver update for HP LaserJet 4000 Series PCL 5 Products - Windows 7,Windows Driver Testing Client Classification - Drivers (Printers)
I went through adding it to the basket, clicking view basket, and downloading. I found the folder “Microsoft driver update for HP LaserJet 4000 Series PCL 5″ with the file X86-all-4189_1228a7cf7b1aac21346b20cb6e21db409dde9e72.cab and extracted the cab file to a flash drive using my favorite compression tool, 7zip. http://www.7-zip.org/
From here i was able to use “have disk” to install the driver.
I think I’ll keep a copy of this around. It supports many more printers. I’ve extracted a list from the prnhp001.Inf and included it below.