[Zuccolo]

My mom has an old Xerox Work Center XE88 Laser Printer that she does not want to replace. She has an old Compaq POS with Windows XP that she wants to trash, but has to keep it because the XE88 has drivers compatible with XP, but not Vista/7. She wants to be able to connect her laptop (loaded with Windows 7) to the printer if possible, except Xerox is no longer supporting the XE88. Is there a way to use the XP driver on a 7 system so she can finally trash that POS computer of hers?

[ibfreeekout]

You could always try the XP Mode (Basically a virtual PC), assuming she has the correct version of 7. I think it only works with Professional and Ultimate versions of the OS but don't quote me on it. But if you are able to get it up and running it should work without a problem.

[Zuccolo]

Alas...she has Windows 7 Home. XP Compatibility mode is only on Professional and Ultimate. Curses.

[cyb.tachyon]

You can force it to use Windows 7 default printer drivers. I've had to do that myself a bunch of times and it seems to work fine for those older XP only printers. In fact, my mother's printer is set up that way. A couple extra painful steps to get the scanning to work using Microsoft Imager instead of the original HP XP software but it's doable.

[Zuccolo]

cyb.tachyon, on 07 March 2010 - 10:46 AM, said:

You can force it to use Windows 7 default printer drivers. I've had to do that myself a bunch of times and it seems to work fine for those older XP only printers. In fact, my mother's printer is set up that way. A couple extra painful steps to get the scanning to work using Microsoft Imager instead of the original HP XP software but it's doable.

How would I go about doing that? As of now, her computer has no default printer selected.

[Bucu]

buy a new printer

[cyb.tachyon]

If it's a USB printer you should just be able to connect it and let Windows 7 give you the option for default microsoft drivers. From there, you'll have to do the work of setting it up as default, making sure scanning works (if the printer supports it) etc.

If it's a serial printer, I'm not too sure. If Microsoft doesn't have the drivers and won't detect it, I'm pretty sure there are some free generic serial printer drivers out there for windows 7.

[Zuccolo]

cyb.tachyon, on 08 March 2010 - 01:20 PM, said:

If it's a USB printer you should just be able to connect it and let Windows 7 give you the option for default microsoft drivers. From there, you'll have to do the work of setting it up as default, making sure scanning works (if the printer supports it) etc.

If it's a serial printer, I'm not too sure. If Microsoft doesn't have the drivers and won't detect it, I'm pretty sure there are some free generic serial printer drivers out there for windows 7.

It's primarily a serial printer with a separate port for USB use. Unfortunately, when I connect it via USB, the computer reads it as a general USB device.