• Is there any way to use an old printer with Windows 7?

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    Roger
    AskWoody Lounger
    August 21, 2012 at 10:14 pm #484976

    I’m trying to help a friend use an old Lexmark Z53 printer on her new Windows 7 PC with W7 Home Premium. Unfortunately, it appears that Lexmark does not provide a Windows 7 driver for the Z53. Is it possible to use some other Windows 7 driver from Lexmark? Or is there perhaps a generic Windows 7 driver that might work? Any other ideas? (The printer works fine with XP) Or should I give up and tell her she has to get a new printer? Thanks for any suggestions.

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    • BATcher
      AskWoody_MVP
      August 22, 2012 at 12:04 am #1346573

      I presume you’ve already tried the “search the internet” function at printer installation time, without success?

      You could try the appropriate bittedness Vista driver. People always recommend this, but I have no feel for success rate.

      This very morning I’m going to try the HP Universal Printer Driver for an HP LaserJet 4100 (PCL5), which unaccountably is not supported in Windows Server 2008 64-bit. Perhaps if the Z53 runs PCL5 or PCL6, it might be worth a try, as a very long shot.

      Otherwise, as you say, a new printer might be the option.

      BATcher

      Plethora means a lot to me.

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    • WSruirib
      AskWoody Lounger
      August 22, 2012 at 4:16 am #1346579

      My feeling is that the printer in question used to be actually cheaper than buying cartridge replacements for it. I would say go for a new one.

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    • BATcher
      AskWoody_MVP
      August 22, 2012 at 4:53 am #1346582

      The Windows 7 Compatibility Center holds out no (official) hope for Lexmark Z53 printer drivers for Windows 7, either for 32-bit or 64-bit, so see if my earlier ideas give any result!

      BATcher

      Plethora means a lot to me.

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      • Roger
        AskWoody Lounger
        August 22, 2012 at 6:52 am #1346587

        Thanks for your comments. Yes, I tried the MS Windows Driver Search, also just searched the internet, as well as the CDROM that came with the printer, which was of course too old. I also realized that I could probably upgrade to Windows 7 Pro and use XP compatibility mode, but she could buy a new cheap printer for the cost of doing the upgrade. Maybe I’ll try the Vista driver and/or or the HP universal driver. Thanks for your suggestions. Seems a shame to discard the old working printer, since I am sure from a programming point of view that a driver COULD be written.

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        • BATcher
          AskWoody_MVP
          August 22, 2012 at 7:21 am #1346588

          I am sure from a programming point of view that a driver COULD be written.

          Indeed yes, but it would cost $lots and Lexmark wouldn’t make any money out of it.

          When we (= large UK bank) bought a whole bunch of Dell laptops, Dell had to pay £huge to a drivers programmer to bring him out of retirement for a few months to write NT4 drivers for the laptop model, which at the time came only with XP\Windows 2000 Workstation. It was worth it for Dell, because it was an order for tens of thousands of laptops, which would have otherwise gone to HP.

          BATcher

          Plethora means a lot to me.

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    • WSruirib
      AskWoody Lounger
      August 22, 2012 at 7:42 am #1346591

      As Batcher wrote, it’s a matter of cost. I understand the feeling of wasting a good printer, but we do need to look at the economics. I remember that for that specific model, it was cheaper (or about even) to buy a new one than buy the set of cartridges it used, so you could even argue whether it made sense even to replace them.

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