How to install drivers for old Designjet plotters for Win 8 & 10

[Ralphye]

I previously had my HP Designjet 488CA plotter working just fine on Win 8 but decided to upgrade to Win 10. The upgrade was a complete failure and I had to install Win 10 and rebuild from scratch. Unfortunately I couldn't remember how to find and install the 64bit HPplotter drivers. After many hours of trawling the web and experimenting, here are the notes from my successful installation:

Turn on TCP/IP printing services (Control Panel/Programs and features/Turn Windows features on or off/Select Simple TCPIP services). This step is only required for my Lantronix EPS2 print server.

Disable device driving signing enforcement:

Windows 8 & 10 prevents you from installing bad drivers. This is a feature called Device Driver Signing. Follow these steps to disable driver signing in Windows:

    Select the 'Start' button.
    Type 'startup'.
    Select 'Change advanced startup settings'.
    Select 'Restart now' under the 'Advanced startup' area.
    Select 'Troubleshoot'.
    Select 'Advanced Options'.
    Select 'Startup Options'.
    Select 'Restart'.
    A menu will appear where you can press 'F7' on your keyboard to choose 'Disable driver signing enforcement'.

Now Device Driver Signing should be disabled, allowing you to install any driver you like in Windows 10 until you reboot. NOTE you will need to disable driver signing enforcement again if you want to install the driver after a reboot.

Download the pl532en_-64bit.zip from http://www.myolddesignjet.com/uploads/6/4/7/2/6472959/pl532en_-64bit.zip

In Windows File Explorer right click on 'OEMSETUP.inf' and select 'Install'

Add the printer (plotter)

Control Panel/Add a printer/The printer that I want isn't listed
Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings

This section is only relevant for my Lantronix EPS2 print server

Create a new port
Select Standard TCP/IP Port
Hostname or IP address: nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
Next - Additional port information required
Device Type: select Custom, click on Settings
Protocol: select LPR
LPR Settings - Queue Name: EPS_xxxxxx_P1 (xxxxxx = last 6 characters of the mac address)
Next
Click Have Disk
Browse to pl532en 64bit folder
Printers: select HP DesignJet 488CA (E/A0) by HP
Click Next

Enjoy plotting to your old HP from Windows 10!

[MishT]

Genius! I have just spent hours looking at different solutions to this. This is the only one that worked for me. My ancient old plotter has been given a new lease of life and it was sooooooo easy to do. Thanks

[annie747]

Is there a reason these steps wouldn't work with the Designjet 430?

I tried EVERYTHING to get it to work with Windows 7 and finally succeeded with the Vista drivers. Now fighting to convince it to work with wondows 10 but no luck 😞