LaserJet will not install on Windows 10

[kerregan]

I have been trying to install my LaserJet 1320 on a brand new Windows 10 (1803) laptop. I have tried both the HP drivers (dot4x64.msi) and the Windows drivers. I have installed and uninstalled many times, but always arrive at the same point.

In Settings / Printers and Scanners, the printer shows as 'Driver is unavailable.'

In Device Manager, the printer does not appear under Printers. However under IEEE 1284.4 compatible printers it shows as 'HP Printer'. Under Universal Serial Bus controllers it appears as 'HP LaserJet 1320 series'. And under Other devices it appears as 'HP Print Device'.

Also, Windows Update wants to install an updated driver, but gives the error 'Microsoft driver update for hp LaserJet 1320 PCL 5 - Error 0x80240061'

HP Print and Scan Doctor does not see the printer.

I am sure that the printer and USB cable are fine since until last week the printer has been in regular use on another Windows 10 PC (which has now sadly expired).

[kerregan]

i didn't get any answers so decided to try the procedure suggested to others that involves a registry update downloaded via Dropbox. This made no difference at all.

However, on another site I found others with the same problem and a suggestion to use the drivers for Windows XP. The 64 bit drivers installed OK and the printer is now working.

[codecage]

I'm having the same problem!

All suggestions have been useless up to this point.

I have finally gotten it escalated to the "Developer" level as a level 2 Microsoft Support tech was unable to get the install to work after more than hour of remote access into my machine.

This is a brand new install of the 1803 release of Windows 10.  I have a laptop that was the 1709 release that installed the 1320 driver from Windows Update just fine back around Christmas time when I bought the laptop.  Several weeks ago I upgrated the laptop to the 1803 release and the printer still works.  So now I have to print just from my laptop (or my wife's).  At least it's easy to share the files between machines with OneDrive.

I wonder how long it will take for Microsoft to get to the bottom of this?

By the way, neither the Microsoft Tech nor I was able to make heads or tails of the only thing we could find from HP in the way of drivers.  HP provides something called "PARK-v1.8.4" that has no details as to what should be done with it.  Thanks a lot HP!

[kerregan]

Did you try the Windows XP driver ? Worked for me.

[codecage]

Downloaded the XP printer drivers and added the 1320 using those drivers.

Works like a charm!

I guess HP and Microsoft are just lost in the $$$ Cloud and don't care about their customers.

Thanks for the tip!

[codecage]

And by the way my 1320 was setup as a network printer using a TCP/IP port, so it doesn't appear to be any different than your USB connected printer.

[kerregan]

A few months on, I realise that although the XP driver works, everything it prints is shrunk by about 5%. This is not a problem for day to day printing but is a problem when printing labels and forms.

So still looking for a driver ....

[kerregan]

I think I have now got to the bottom of this ...

There are no PCL5 drivers for Windows 10, so you must install older drivers to use the printer under Windows 10. There is a procedure here -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_hUiUCMCJw - which uses the Widows 8 Universal Printing Driver; you probably won't understand the language but you can just follow the video.

In terms of printing being shrunk, this is not the driver, not the printer properties and not the document settings. Instead there is a stupid setting in MS Word to 'Scale content for A4 or 8.5 x 11” paper sizes' tucked away under Word Options / Advanced / Print. On the HP 1320, this seems to have the effect of always shrinking the document just in case Letter paper is loaded.