I'm having problems with my HP9180 and the driver for it.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything and nothing seems to
help....

I have upgraded the firmware in the printer and tried the new driver
patch from HP, and still the color are off in different ways when I print.
Looks like the printer/driver i picking a paper type and profile on random,
and the settings in the driver is more or less random when I recheck
the setting before printing.

Very annoying and makes the printer useless of course.

I'm guessing that I have a problem with Windows XP and the driver, does
anybody know how to really remove everything and get a clean install
without having to format the drive an install windows from scratch?
Registry settings I can remove or change?

As things are now, the installer does not manage to complete a new install.
Everything else is working OK on the machine so the HP driver is the only
problem.

Not an expert on PC but I do know the 9180 well. If the colors are off one place to look is the advanced properties and the settings for icm.

IF all is well and your colours are still off, you need to do a calibration. This is a little surprising but sometimes it is all that is necessary, if your sure your colour settings and workflow are as they should be.

I thought there was an uninstaller in the Programs/HP folder?

I'm afraid I have tried all sensible things, including calibration and all settings in the driver. And then upgrading the firmware and the new driver from HP. When that didn't work I tried to uninstall and reinstall all the sw and drivers, and from there it have been downhill all the way.

I used the provided uninstaller, but when I try to install now, the install will just die before it is finished. As the sw has been working since 2006 on this machine, the problem must be some problem with the OS and the driver. I'm trying to uninstall completely to get a new clean install to work, but so far no luck.

If I click on preferences when I print, set some properties like paper etc. and click OK, then the driver will show random selections if I press preferences again without doing anything else. It will not remember or honor my settings.

Perhaps obvious, but the easiest solution would be a system restore to a point in time before you started having problems.

If a system restore won't do, then yes, you will need to clean out the registry of all things B9180 related. I've been down that road and it's a big time PITA.

Post back if you need to try the registry cleaning, and I'll provide more details.

Mark

I doesn't have a restore point, so I have tried to remove everything I found to be
HP related on my computer, both files and the registry. But I might have missed
something I guess.

The installer will run happily for a while, but at some point after it have made
a connection to the printer over the net, the installer dies before completion
without any error messages.

So any suggestions about how to clean out the registry would be very welcome.

Instructions for "exorcizing" HP drivers from your system: (Think of removing bubble gum from the bottom of your shoe on a hot summer’s day and you will be somewhat mentally prepared for this. )

(Usual disclaimers apply: This involves editing your registry, and you can screw your system up big time if you don’t know what you are doing.)

If you have any other HP printers installed (I had two others) this process will be more complicated, because you will have to try removing the B9180-related goo without removing the other drivers.

1. MOST IMPORTANT: Set a system restore point in Windows. (Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore.)
2. Remove your printer from the “Printers and Faxes” list. (Control Panel/Printers and Faxes.)
You might not find it here if your earlier uninstall process removed it.
3. Open the registry editor and click on “My Computer” at the top of the left column. (You may need to scroll up to see it.)
4. Hit Ctrl/F to open the “find” box. Place checkmarks in the “Keys” and “Values” boxes.
(You may need to do “Data” later, but leave it unchecked for now.)
5. Now, here is where your life starts to ebb away... In the “Find What” box, you will start searching for the following phrases: (Don’t include the quotes.)
- “HP “ Be sure to include a space after HP.
- “hp\” (Backslash.)
- “hewlett”

Type these one at a time into the “Find What” box, and then hit the “Find Next” button. Hit your Delete key to remove the highlighted values (but read below first!)

You will need some good common sense to make decisions about removing the items found. The “Keys” (like categories) are on the left side of the window. Look at the categories closely to decide if you should remove the entire key. Does it seem only related to HP/B9180? Delete it. Or, does it seem to be part of another program? Other programs, like MS Word might have references to printers in their keys–don’t remove these.

The same holds true for the right side, the “Values.” Only select and remove items related to your specific HP printer.

Search for each phrase, and remove all the HP related entries. Removing a “Key” (left side) will remove an entire category, so make sure it is related to HP.

After you have removed every scrap of HP-related gunk, try re-installing your drivers. If it still won’t work, do a system restore to the point you set earlier, then repeat the above process, this time checking off the “Data” box in step 4.

Just for fun, send HP a bill for your time.

I hope this will help you and others with similar afflictions.

Mark

Thank you! It worked! I'm now back to just the usual and ordinary problems with this printer and can print again.

And you were right, at #5 you really feel that your life is ebbing away.

And to everybody that thinks that the R&D budget at HP is to develop inks and printers: wrong, they use the money to write sw that fills up the registry on windows machines. At lest it feel that way when you have to do clean up.

Would you mind if I put your solution (with a reference to you) on my page about the printer here.

I try to collect all useful information I find about the printer there to keep it printing along with my profiles for the different papers I have tried...

So glad it helped Ronny!

Sure, go ahead and add the instructions to your site. I hope they can save other folks some grief. Good tips on your site by the way--I'm sure I'll find something I can use!

Mark Raymond

Ronny,

Consider adding one further precaution and that is to export the registry and save it on a flash drive (or some form of external storage). Doing this means that you have the original registry should something go wrong. One should do this first before making any edits to the registry.

Ciao,

Doug

PS: visited your site--lovely images.

Again: Thank you!

I have put it up now.

Ronny

Good idea, I have put in in there now.



Thank you, glad you like them.

Ronny