Technical Support Chat a farce

I'm washing my hands of HP from now on. I just got off of an on-line chat
with a tech-support person who ignored three requests for someone more
knowledgable.

I've been trying to install a driver for a psc1350 (currently connected to a
Compaq upstairs - there's another mistake-) on a Win 98 machine on the
network, because I wanted to be able to print across the network. I was
assured in the store that this model, if shared through XP, was capable. The
Add Printer wizard could find no file on the installation disk that would
work, and simply running the installation disk apparently didn't work
either - a bunch of files were copied to the hard drive, but no printer
installed.

I got everything from this tech support person possible, from "All of the
computers on the network should have the same OS" to "Run this scrubber
program 5 times - reboot - then try to install again." How bad does your
programming for an install of a printer have to be to have to run a scrubber
program 5 times to uninstall everything? There is apparently no quality
control here, and I don't know anyone who has the time to worry about going
through such gyrations to install/uninstall a $100 printer. I used to equate
HP with tech sophistication and quality, but no more.

Cotton

On the seventh day, Cotton wrote...

> I'm washing my hands of HP from now on. I just got off of an on-line chat
> with a tech-support person who ignored three requests for someone more
> knowledgable.
>
> I've been trying to install a driver for a psc1350 (currently connected to a
> Compaq upstairs - there's another mistake-) on a Win 98 machine on the
> network, because I wanted to be able to print across the network. I was
> assured in the store that this model, if shared through XP, was capable. The
> Add Printer wizard could find no file on the installation disk that would
> work, and simply running the installation disk apparently didn't work
> either - a bunch of files were copied to the hard drive, but no printer
> installed.
>
> I got everything from this tech support person possible, from "All of the
> computers on the network should have the same OS" to "Run this scrubber
> program 5 times - reboot - then try to install again." How bad does your
> programming for an install of a printer have to be to have to run a scrubber
> program 5 times to uninstall everything? There is apparently no quality
> control here, and I don't know anyone who has the time to worry about going
> through such gyrations to install/uninstall a $100 printer. I used to equate
> HP with tech sophistication and quality, but no more.

I strongly believe that HP produces for different markets in terms of
quality: the simple home user devices and the more-qualitative business
line of products, esp. from its middle-class upward. Since you have one of
the former devices I can very well understand your anger. The producers
(not only HP but others as well) seem to make perfectly sure by programming
very badly, that the devices must not be used for anything more than just
home use. The end user shall buy one of the more expensive business
products such as the PSC22xx. Since there is no regulation against that I
strongly suggest one asks for other customers' experiences first before
buying. Do you have money-back warranty?

--
mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin

The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little
and it will fail to the ruin of us all. - Galadriel

Unfortunately, no money back guarantee available. It's just a shame to have
such a lousy experience from a company I used to respect.

Cotton

"Christian Dürrhauer" <> wrote in message
news:81hrbw5kdt0t$....

> I strongly believe that HP produces for different markets in terms of
> quality: the simple home user devices and the more-qualitative business
> line of products, esp. from its middle-class upward. Since you have one of
> the former devices I can very well understand your anger. The producers
> (not only HP but others as well) seem to make perfectly sure by
programming
> very badly, that the devices must not be used for anything more than just
> home use. The end user shall buy one of the more expensive business
> products such as the PSC22xx. Since there is no regulation against that I
> strongly suggest one asks for other customers' experiences first before
> buying. Do you have money-back warranty?
>
> --
> mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
> Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin
>
> The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little
> and it will fail to the ruin of us all. - Galadriel

"Cotton" <> wrote in message news:v6Qhe.10347$D91.7858@fed1read01...
Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 15:32:46 -0700

Unfortunately, no money back guarantee available. It's just a
shame to have such a lousy experience from a company I used to
respect.

Hi Cotton... Just try to name one non-family owned company that
doesn't care about their stockholders. As very few big named
companies ever have good customer service unless you are willing to
pay an arm and a leg for it.




Cheers!


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

Hi Cotton,

If I understand your situation, you would like to print from a PC,
across your network, to a printer attached to another PC, right? The PC
with the printer attached is running XP, and the one you'd like to print
from is running 98, is that right? You should be able to get it
working, but there are several more steps involved than simply loading
the printer drivers on the PC. I had a similar situation ... I wanted
to print from a laptop running XP to a PC with a printer attached
running ME. I got it working, but it was not very reliable and very
inconsistant. I finally got totally fed up with ME and loaded XP on
that PC. Since then, the network printing has been *much* more
reliable, so having a consistent OS across your network does help.

I don't remember all the steps involved in getting it working, but I can
try if you need them.



Cotton wrote:
> I'm washing my hands of HP from now on. I just got off of an on-line chat
> with a tech-support person who ignored three requests for someone more
> knowledgable.
>
> I've been trying to install a driver for a psc1350 (currently connected to a
> Compaq upstairs - there's another mistake-) on a Win 98 machine on the
> network, because I wanted to be able to print across the network. I was
> assured in the store that this model, if shared through XP, was capable. The
> Add Printer wizard could find no file on the installation disk that would
> work, and simply running the installation disk apparently didn't work
> either - a bunch of files were copied to the hard drive, but no printer
> installed.
>
> I got everything from this tech support person possible, from "All of the
> computers on the network should have the same OS" to "Run this scrubber
> program 5 times - reboot - then try to install again." How bad does your
> programming for an install of a printer have to be to have to run a scrubber
> program 5 times to uninstall everything? There is apparently no quality
> control here, and I don't know anyone who has the time to worry about going
> through such gyrations to install/uninstall a $100 printer. I used to equate
> HP with tech sophistication and quality, but no more.
>
> Cotton
>
>