Epson 3800 on Windows Vista?

jfriend

Has anyone successfully gotten and Epson 3800 running on Windows Vista? I'm trying to run the printer on my network (connected via Ethernet) and do most of my printing from a new Windows Vista computer. The out-of-the-box software does not support Vista at all, but the web-site claims they do have Vista support so this has involved a lot of downloading and installing.

So far (after 6 hours of futzing and numerous downloads from the Epson web-site), I've gotten Photoshop to print to the printer, but all of Epson's other software (like the status monitor that reports on ink levels and other printer health items and the printer firmware upgrade tool) can't talk to the printer at all.

Anyone else successfully done this and have any thoughts to share?

Pupator

I'd suggest setting it up as a local printer before attempting the network config. If you can get the driver and software acting right when it's local, then it's just a simple matter of switching ports once you put it in the network setup.

Also, it's not uncommon for printers to only offer 1-way communication when being used via network. It may or may not be the case with yours, but some of my printers that report ink levels, etc. just fine when on USB are not able to do so via LAN.

jfriend

Pupator wrote:

I'd suggest setting it up as a local printer before attempting the network config. If you can get the driver and software acting right when it's local, then it's just a simple matter of switching ports once you put it in the network setup.

Also, it's not uncommon for printers to only offer 1-way communication when being used via network. It may or may not be the case with yours, but some of my printers that report ink levels, etc. just fine when on USB are not able to do so via LAN.

Thanks for the thoughts.

I think I will end up switching to USB, perhaps permanently. I liked the idea of the flexibility of an ethernet connection since I have ethernet everywhere, but not if I have to give up useful features.

There are others who have gotten 2-way to work via ethernet (according to stuff I read in Google searches) so I know it's possible, but it appears to be a black magic configuration that makes it work because Epson's installer certainly doesn't make it work and none of the work-arounds I've read about have worked on my system.

jfriend

jfriend wrote:

Has anyone successfully gotten and Epson 3800 running on Windows Vista? I'm trying to run the printer on my network (connected via Ethernet) and do most of my printing from a new Windows Vista computer. The out-of-the-box software does not support Vista at all, but the web-site claims they do have Vista support so this has involved a lot of downloading and installing.

So far (after 6 hours of futzing and numerous downloads from the Epson web-site), I've gotten Photoshop to print to the printer, but all of Epson's other software (like the status monitor that reports on ink levels and other printer health items and the printer firmware upgrade tool) can't talk to the printer at all.

Anyone else successfully done this and have any thoughts to share?

Over in a similar thread on dpreview, somebody else said that they found a newer version of the Epson 3800 drivers on the European web-site and that version fixed this problem for them. I was skeptical, but went to the UK site, found a newer version of the print driver (6.5 vs. 5.5), installed it and lo and behold, it did fix the problem. So it's just Epson U.S. that is screwing up I guess.

Pupator

jfriend wrote:

Over in a similar thread on dpreview, somebody else said that they found a newer version of the Epson 3800 drivers on the European web-site and that version fixed this problem for them. I was skeptical, but went to the UK site, found a newer version of the print driver (6.5 vs. 5.5), installed it and lo and behold, it did fix the problem. So it's just Epson U.S. that is screwing up I guess.

Thanks for reporting back on this. Hopefully someone else who needs it will find it!