No driver for Designjet 500 plotter for Windows 7 64 bit [ Edited ]

[GLA]

I still cannot get my HP Designjet 500 printer to work with Windows 7 64 bit.  I have downloaded every conceivable version of drivers that you say will work but not of them can be installed and I can't print from AutoCAD.  You have no idea how annoying this is.  My plotter will work with another computer running Windows 7 32 bit and also with a computer running XP so there is nothing wrong with the plotter or the computer.  It is your software that doesn't work.  What is the solution?  I need it immediately!!

Below is the message I get when I try to install my plotter.  What the hell am I supposed to do?????

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 9:48 AM
To: 'HP Support'
Subject: RE: HP Designjet 500 24-in Roll Printer Email Support <<#3897366#>>

Any progress on a driver???  I keep getting emails from your company with information on new plotters.  I would never buy a new plotter from you again based on the support I am getting on the one I have.  I use my plotter sparingly but I do need it for my work.  It's condition is "like new" except without the correct driver it is useless.  Why can't you get me a driver for 64 bit Windows 7????  JUST PATHETIC!!!!

The Windows 7 program will not allow me to install the Vista driver.

-----Original Message-----

Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 1:11 PM

To: 'HP Support'

Subject: RE: HP Designjet 500 24-in Roll Printer Email Support <<#3897366#>>

My computer will not allow me to install this driver.  It says it is the wrong driver for my printer!!!!

-----Original Message-----

From: HP Support [mailto:NA_ACTIVE_MAIL@hp.com]

Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 10:46 AM

Subject: HP Designjet 500 24-in Roll Printer Email Support <<#3897366#>>

Thank you for contacting Hewlett-Packard.

This is in response to your e-mail regarding the HP Designjet 500 24-in Roll Printer.

Hello.

Thank you for contact HP DesignJet web support. I am sorry for our delayed, I really appreciate your patience.

Related on the issue you are experiencing and the specific error your have, I am sorry to inform you that we do not have driver for windows 7 64 bit compatible on the DesignJet 500 printer yet, our driver designers are still working on it. What I can recommend you to do is to download the driver for windows vista 64 bit and install it on your computer Windows 7 64. Most of our customer are using that driver and works fine.

You can download the driver from the following link:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18...

Please just download it and install it on your computer, test it and let us know if you have any other issue with your Designjet printer.

If you need more assistance fell free to contact us back by e-mail or give us a call at 1-800-334-5144.

Thank you for contact HP web support and have a great day.

Sincerely,

HP Email Support

Please include the following identifier in the subject line of all future correspondence relating to this ticket.

Incident ID: <3897366>>

[DavidZuts]

The driver should be built into the operating system.  What you need to do is when you get to the makers page, click on the windows update button since the driver is only available on the update and wait for the printer list to repoplulate.  When it is does choose hp on the left and then scroll down to designjet 500 on the right and just choose the model of your 500 and finish up.  I know it is there for the 32bit so I assume it is also there for the 64bit.  Good Luck.

[dyefast]

---

DavidZuts wrote:

The driver should be built into the operating system.  What you need to do is when you get to the makers page, click on the windows update button since the driver is only available on the update and wait for the printer list to repoplulate.  When it is does choose hp on the left and then scroll down to designjet 500 on the right and just choose the model of your 500 and finish up.  I know it is there for the 32bit so I assume it is also there for the 64bit.  Good Luck.

---

hp did not make all the drivers we need,after 2 months they finally said it.they will someday wont commit to when so we are screwed

[Bob Headrick]

The link that HP support provided in your original post seems to work fine for me.  What problem are you having?  I ran the download, specified a temp directory to save the file and then used "Add a Printer" and "Have Disk", pointing to the directory where I unzipped the files.  I do not have a Designjet 500 to test with but the driver seemed to install fine.

What exactly is the error you are having?  Can you not get the driver installed or does it not function as you would expect?

I am using an XP x64 driver for my DJ 650C successfully under Windows 7 x64.

[DavidZuts]

Bob he still did not respond to my post.  I would like to know if the 500 driver is built into the windows 7 operating system 64 bit when using the windows update button on the makers page.  I know it is there for the 32 bit.  I do not have 64 bit to search and it appears this user is so mad at hp that he does not want to try anything but vent his anger on this forum.  I would just like to know for future questions from other users.

[Bob Headrick]

Hi David - 

Yes, in addition to the x64 driver in the link above there are drivers available through Windows Update for the 64 bit Windows 7 drivers. The drivers appear to be the same features as provided in the link - I do not have a DJ 500 to test but installed the HP version and then the version through Windows Update and they appear to have the same features.  

My experience has been that when there are both Windows Update and HP drivers available that the latter have more features but in this case that may not be true - the HP version is 6.08 with a data file version of 2.1 while the Windows Update version is 7.10 with a data file version of 2.0.   I have no idea what the differences between the versions are and why the Update version would be newer for the driver but an older version of the data file.

[DavidZuts]

Thanks Bob.  I just noticed that the previous responder who is venting against hp is not the original poster.  Wish they would not post to other peoples threads since his problem is with a laserjet and just confuses the issue.  When people are looking for help they do not need idiots making it difficult for them to get the help. 

[Pier3v]

Hi David and Bob,

I have a DJ500 24" and a pc with Win7 64 at the office; I will test the driver tomorrow and post my findings.

[Pier3v]

Update:

Loaded the driver and tested the DJ500.

Worked fine for me.

[Bob Headrick]

Thanks for the update.  Did you use the Windows Update version 7.10 or the HP download version 6.08?

[tjm183]

Hello All

I have the same exact problem. I have an HP design jet 500 hooked up to a jetdirect 300x using a parallel cable. I  used it to print from autocad, also.

Everything worked fine until I upgraded from vista - 64 -bit to windows 7 64-bit. the printer works fine printing from other PC's (running XP -32 bit). But, when I print I receive a "replace print head error"?

I appreciate any help or suggestions.

Thank you,

tom

[RayC]

Excellent answers, very helpful, thanks folks.

still having one problem with the new driver, the services tab is empty with the exception of the trouble shooter button. Should there not be buttons for ink levels, print head conditions and the like?

 TIA, Ray C

[MStarks]

I am having the same problem the previous user is having.  I have a DJ 500 plotter 42 inch and I installed the updated driver for Windows 7 64 Bit from HP's website.  The driver installed fine, but I am getting a Warning 61:05 message.  I have the plotter networked through to a Direct Jet 3 Plus device to a parallel cable.  I have XP 32 bit machines that that still print fine.  I am looking for a solution.  I have tried the Windows update, but it does not return any results.  I will need to check it again tomorrow at work.

Help Please!

MJS

[Factory-Fit]

We had exact same problem my friend. My company has two fairly powerful 32bit XP machines and we've just bought a 64 bit pc preloaded with Windows 7. We plot via an ancient Netgear PS110 print server onto the parallel port of a HP 500+GL 24" Plotter.

The 64 bit Windows 7 machine wouldn't plot with any driver; I decided to test Windows 7 before rolling it out any further, by installing it on my XP 32 bit machine and that stopped being able to print as well.

Eventually we decided it might be the Print Server (it wasn't) and accidentally found the cure on a Netgear support site.

This is the response posting:-

Here's how to use your (Netgear PS110) with Vista: *(It worked with Windows 7 as well)

Open Control Panel and double-click Programs and Features.

Click Turn Windows Features on or off

Expand Print Services and check LPR Port Monitor and click OK. This will take a few minutes to install.

Now go to Control Panel/Printers and Add a Printer. Select Create a New Port, choose LPR Port and click Next.

Put the IP address of the PS110 and give it a name. I used PS326184_P1, which is the port name the Netgear software chose when using the PS110 on XP.

Print away....

*Kev adds:- so the issue wasn't the driver, but the fact that something wasn't turned on in Windows 7that was needed to work with the Plotter. Note that Windows 7 has 'programs and features' in a very stupid place; you open control panel and go to 'uninstall programs' and then 'programs and features' then onto 'print services' before you can locate the checkbox for LPR Port Monitor.

Also the dumb thing is, you install it as a LOCAL printer (not network) even though ours was on a print server, we then waited for the LPR thing to take effect. On the W7 64 bit machine it happened smoothly, but on the W7 32 bit machine it got stuck, but when I rebooted it was ticked so tried it and it printed.

So the issue with us wasn't the driver, but with the fact that LPR Port Monitor (whatever that is) wasn't enabled by default in Windows7 either 32 or 64bit preloaded versions. The Print Server was irelevant.

I am now trying to get our Server to do the same but no success so far, which doesn't matter, but it would have been tidier to do the Plotter via a shared printer on our server.

If you wish to discuss further I'm going to type all this up for future updates and after I retire, to store in the computer file, and can send you a copy

Cheers

Kevin Armstrong

[MacCampbell]

Thanks Kevin this worked, for me.

I had to use the IP address and not the name, use the windows update drivers and not the ones from the HP site, and reboot as well... and now I'm up and printing.

Windows 7 64bit, DesignJet 500 ps (42)

[Factory-Fit]

Tried updating the Netgear PS110 hoping this would make printing a little slicker, but found a DLink print server wouldn't connect with the Designjet at all, this was a shame as it had two potentially useful USB ports.
So back on went the old Netgear, but persisting with the File Server on 2008 got that to talk to the print server and plotter too, so I shared it so that all the networked computers could plot through it. This seemed to offer a useful control when two users print simultaneously. An odd glitch is that the plotter icon on network computers then showed a realistic plotter, but the shared plotter on the File Server showed the generic 'flattened' printer icon. Checking out the plotter location on the network via either icon showed the same I.P. address, so to tidy matters up I left the plotter as accessed directly on the network. So far no issues.
Cheers
Kev

[Tonypoo]

Hello.

I have the same problem except I have a Designjet 430 A1 24 inch roll.

Can I use the same driver that you are suggesting for the Designjet 500?

Thanks in advance

António

[Factory-Fit]

Hi, it isn't the driver but the way Your computer is setup that does the trick. I would start with the correct driver from HP and work from there with the other details
I am not an expert, just sharing what sheer persistence worked for our Designjet 24 plotter

[homerserna]

I need drivers for dj500 for windows 7 and xp pro both using NTFS, I assume the windows 7 is 64-bit, I downloaded the driver zip files from this hp site but when I unzip them there is no executable or ini or anything that looks familiar as far as running the drivers so they can install any hints perhaps another website ?

[homerserna]

Well I reread your posts, and I'm going to try some of your suggestions, thanks If I have any luck I'll let you know what I did :)

[DavidZuts]

For both systems you use the add printer.  You choose local port and on the next page down at the bottom you choose create port and in the drop down choose standard tcp/ip and then you put in the ip address of the external jet direct.  When you get to the makers page you say have disk and then browse to the directory where you unzipped the files.  If you do not know the ip address of the box do a search for the method of pressing the test button to get the plotter to print out a page with the address.

[ajoplin]

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18...

I hope that this link works. I tried every version of HP500/800 driver with my Win7x64 platform that I could find and they did not work. This is the only one that does. The printer MUST be identified as "HP Designjet 500PS 42 by HP" or it wont work. It worked immediately.

[RayC]

win 7 64bit drv

[Watchin]

Would someone know of a compatible Windows 7 32-Bit universal driver that might work with a Roland FJ-500 Plotter?  The manufacturer does not provide one.  The plotter worked in Win XP Pro using ColorChoice software.  When attempting to add printer using the INF file, the list populates with the appropriate model, but, gives the error 0x0000002 which seems to be a generic windows driver load error.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.