Can't get OfficeJet 6000 installation to complete on Vista

[steve02476]

I'm trying to install the OfficetJet 6000 driver on my up-to-date Vista laptop. Every time I run the installer I tells me early in the process that it sees the remnants of an earlier installation and that it will have to remove it. I say ok. It goes on for a while, and then tells me it needs tor restart the computer to complete the process. After the restart, it automatically starts and goes through exactly the same steps - tells me it sees an earlier installation, then it needs to restart, then again... This happens over and over again, with no change.

I have tried this with my installer from the CD, and with three different installers I have downloaded from the HP site for the HPOJ 6000 (regular, basic, and corporate). Exact same results. I have used the "scrubber" program, both from the CD and from the HP site, to remove all traces, but the same thing happens when I then run any of the installers again. I also tried system restore but that didn't seem to help.

Any way to REALLY scrub out all bits from a prior HP installation? Any way to get the installer to ignore the prior installation and just install?

Alternatively, is there any way I can print to this printer (over the network) without having installed the HP installer? Is there some set of files I can copy from another successfully installed Vista computer?

Thanks. I've never had such a difficult installation for a printer! -Steve

[steve02476]

Found some stuff here about uninstalling HP stuff, I'm going to try some of it out.

    http://www.out-of-warranty.com/three-ways-to-uninstall-and-reinstall-hp

Any other ideas?

Thanks. -Steve

[steve02476 · Accepted solution]

Hey, thanks for all the help!  Just kidding.  

Anyway - I tried the stuff in the link above, and it didn't seem to work. But then I tried again, carefully doing everything that was listed in the first section, plus I did some noodling around in RedEdit and got rid of some other Hewlett-Packard stuff - and then the install went fine!

So, if anyone else has a similar problem, it *is* a matter of getting rid of stuff. I cleaned out all the files in the system I could find, plus pretty much everything in the registry that had the term "Hewlett" in it.

Good luck if you have the problem, it sure is frustrating. -Steve