Why can I not get my Pro 8000 to default to A4

[myhpmantab]

Well I finally managed to get my Officejet Pro 8000 A809 to work on "Network" with all my computers, my Windows 7 ACER laptop took a lot of persuading, and a 2 hour download on 2 computers of the latest software (once for the XP  PC to which the ethernet ports are connected, and once to the laptop), before finally working as a "Web services printer" after having told me to disconnect the USB cable. I plugged the USB back in later, and lo and behold it decided to work with that too. My wifes ASUS would not install at all and kept throwing up a fatal error message on drive F: - Hold on, it doesn't have a drive F:, so I got my external DVD R/RW and plugged it into the USB socket, I now had a drive F: and it loaded perfectly. So if this happens to you, you know what to try! The surprise was how effortlessly the Apple Mac Mini connected.

My major problem is convincing the printer to default to A4 instead of US Letter size. If I go to preferences and play with the pretty pictures and set single sided printing to A4 and "APPLY" and click OK then it is set to A4.... until I set double-sided printing to A4, whereupon single-sided reverts to US Letter - Yes, I know I can set my own styles, but that clutters up the viewing panel, and some choices disappear off the bottom. Any suggestions?

[viffer800fix]

myhpmantab wrote:

"My major problem is convincing the printer to default to A4 instead of US Letter size. If I go to preferences and play with the pretty pictures and set single sided printing to A4 and "APPLY" and click OK then it is set to A4.... until I set double-sided printing to A4, whereupon single-sided reverts to US Letter - Yes, I know I can set my own styles, but that clutters up the viewing panel, and some choices disappear off the bottom. Any suggestions?"

Sorry to piggyback, but at least it's not a hijack.  I have the same problem with my C309g.  It "sticks" if I use it as localadmin, and indeed if I use my wife's standard user account, but not with my own standard user account.

Tim.

[The_Magus]

I suppose you have by now realised that you are not alone. I would imagine that every user east of the Atlantic is having exactly the same problem and (based on my largely positive experience with other HP printer management software and drivers) I am finding it more than a tad irksome (and disappointing) that HP do not seem to give a Continental (pun intended).

Are we sure that HP are actually monitoring this channel and are aware of the problem? It would only take a minor tweak driver or firmware tweak (using code that already works perfectly on some of their other products) so why don't they just do it?

If anyone else has subsequently found a viable solution to this problem, please post it here?

[The_Magus]

Update: I just managed to contact one of the top dudes in HP Customer Support Europe via Facbook. He's promised to get onto it and get mack to me and this forum. So a solution might be at hand....

[Mugu]

HI

Thank you for you post. The Hp Software Drivers are designed to have the Letter size as default for all region, However, you can follow the below given steps to resolve this issue .

 In order to resolve the issue please follow the steps given below:

1. 1.       Click on Start  and click on Control Panel.
2. 2.       In the control Panel window click on “Regional and Language Settings”.

1. 3.       In the regional and language options window, click on Formats tab.

1. 4.       Under Current format select “English (United Kingdom)”

1. 5.       Then click on Locations tab and under Current location select “United Kingdom”

1. 6.       Then click on Keyboard and Languages tab and then click on Change Keyboards button that will open the Text Services and Languages window.

1. 7.        Click on General Tab and under default input language select “English (United Kingdom)”. If United Kingdom is not listed, then click on Add.

1. 8.       Select United Kingdom and click on OK, then select United Kingdom and click on Move Up.

1. 9.       Click on Apply and then on OK.
2. 10.   In the Regional and Language Options window, click on Administrative tab.

1. 11.   Under Language for non – Unicode programs, click on “Change system locale” button.
2. 12.   Under “Current system Locale” click on the drop down menu and select English (United Kingdom) and click on OK.

1. 13.   You will be prompted to restart the computer. Click on Restart Now.

1. 14.   Once the computer is restarted, please click on Start and then on Control Panel.
2. 15.   In the control Panel window, click on “Regional and Language Settings”.
3. 16.   In the regional and language options window, click on Administrative tab.
4. 17.   Under “Reserved Accounts” click on “Copy to reserved accounts” button.

1. 18.   Check the boxes “Default user accounts (new users)” and “System accounts (local system, local services, and network service)” and click on OK.

1. 19.   Then click on Apply and then click on OK.

1. 20.   You will be prompted to restart the computer. Restart the computer and check.

Please revert if the issue persits.

Regards

Mugu

[The_Magus]

Sorry but ...  Duh! If it had not been abundantly obvious to a 3-year-old that "HP defaults to letter" we would not have begun this post. Please also note that this defaulting to "letter" might be experienced as discriminatory by users in Europe. I think it is reasonable to expect me to set my printer to a4 ONCE, and not have to go back to the settings every time I print!

The "solution" you suggest (while stating no more than the obvious) is only for Windows XP - Please could you repeat this for Win 7? Also, are you sure that this solution will not cause more problems than it solves? I don't want to mess up all the language settings and have to reprogram my libraries, keyboards etc. All I want it for my printer not to assume I'm in the USA.