10GB failed AIO installation files on C drive

[jasperdog]

There are two problems -- my C7280 Photosmart printer disappears from Printers folder within weeks of telling the install program to "add a device." Maybe this happens if the router changes its IP address, but AIO_CDA_Full_Network_enu_NB.exe always finds it easily. The second problem is that I now find that my C drive is cluttered with over 10GB of failerd installation folders!

I believe this problem of losing the printer started at one point in the past when a file cleanup program on my Vista computer attempted to clean up my C drive by deleting TEMP folders. Ever since then, the Photosmart printer (C7180 driver) has disappeared regularly. HELP! When the printer gets "lost," it shows up as $FriendlyName$ in the HP Solution Center, but cannot be ccessed.

The installation folders have names of the form 7zSxxxx, where xxxx are random hex digits and they are subdirectories of c:\Users\John\AppData\Local|Temp. Each one of these is 520MB in size, and more than one of them are referred to in the registry, but not all. There are many other folders in TEMP, but none as huge as the dozens of HP folders, presumably left over from the dozens of times I've had to refind the printer or reinstalled the driver completely.

I've also tried using an HP utility to uninstall ALL HP drivers to start from scratch, but that didn't work either. Meanwhile, HP continues cluttering by hard drive with zillions of 520MB directories and I'm getting really tired with HP "losing" my printer.

[serverguy]

HP did this to you.  They released a "fix" that causes the printer to disappear every boot up.  The print spooler stops, too.  It is nasty!  You have to uninstall everything, reboot, then reinstall everything and it goes away when you shutdown.  NO FUN!!!!!!!!

Then they put out a fix for the fix.  Maybe it works.  Don't know.  I have given up on HP.  They are clueless.  Used to be great but have crumbled into uselesness. 

My C7180 won't install on Vista.  Gets a VERY cryptic message and stops after already finding the printer and installing some stuff for it.  What a crock.  Tighten it up, HP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jasperdog]

I blame HP for deciding that a TEMP directory was a good place to put the install/uninstall files. NOT!! Who's the lame-brain who decided that?  And the one who decided it was too much trouble to delete 1/2 a gig of files when you uninstall the printer. I upgraded to a new PC with Windows 7 fresh install. It found the "Network Printer" and I installed the drivers from internet. Eventually I downloaded the latest full feature driver because I wanted the Photosmart Essentials. Once in a while, the driver gets set to "Use Printer Offline" mode, but that's easy to correct.

I have one PC in the house with Vista, and it does still lose the printer occasionally. If so, I delete the printer from the "PRINTERS" folder (you have to clear the queue 1st), tell Vista to look for a Network Printer and use the driver from the pick list when it appears. Haven't had to do that on Windows 7 PCs.

[Binary_Zen]

Hi,

I had a similar experience with an HP SLPxxx.txt file that filled up my temp folder but I found out that my computer kept losing connectivity to the network and the HP software creates a logfile everytime. The 7zxxx folder as you have said is the software driver installation folder. This should have been created once when a driver download is extracted. This is just speculation but it sounds like HP update probably detected that new driver is available then it downloads it and then fails to extract properly. So it ended up with multiple downloads and multiple incomplete extraction points in the temp folder.

There is a connectivity update for the C7280 on the web, if you get a chance install it. My personal suggestion would be to remove HP update from startup. Run it from time to time if you wanted to make sure you have the latest updates.

Windows 7 Critical Update to enhance reliability of network connection

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=mp-89191-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&...