Printers, Windows ME and Vista

annpa · Post by **annpa** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:15 pm

I've had a fortnight from hell!

I have a Lexmark printer a Z708 which went on the blink. the electronics for the socket for the black cartidge stopped working so we carried on printing using the colour cartridge while looking for another printer. a workaround of sorts.

My husband went on a trawl for a new printer, and found some wonderful ones at even more wonderful prices, but none of them were suitable. The problem? I have a Vista laptop, but he still uses the Windows ME PC. The oldest platform we found that was supported was windows 2000.

My first thought was whether it was possible to upgrade a PC from ME to 2000 or XP? was it at all possible to buy the software?
Upgrading it to Vista was not on the cards as my husband doesn't like it, and we have software on the ME PC dating back to Windows 95 which he is still using!

On a visit to my local Cartridge World I solved the problem of hanging on to the ME platform by finding a brand new HP Deskjet D2360 which I set up and the ME PC is printing away merrily.

There was a problem when I tried to install the printer on the Vista laptop to find that the available platforms were from 98SE to XPx64. I kept on getting a message that I did not have administrator privileges. Strange, as I am the only user and set myself up with administrator privileges. However I found a download on the HP site which allowed me to download the full installation files, Photosmart etc, and a Vista driver. Hooray! Tomorrow my brother is going to teach me how to get around those pesky administrator messages!

now I'm cooking on gas!!

Thanks. There's always a way around everything. Just takes longer.

Cheers
Annpa

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:57 am

Hello Annpa,

Looks like you’ve taken whip in hand and shown the computers who's boss and there should be more of it.

I used to have Windows ME, sort of like Windows 98 with bells on. System Restore and a few other enhancements came in handy from time to time. It used to crash on me all the time and was what might be described as a lemon of an operating system. Six months later and I would have had XP.

Microsoft has long abandoned customers who paid for ME and there hasn’t been a security update for about three years. Security updates for XP will I believe continue until 2014.That’s five years of support for ME compared to 13 years for XP and ME users are left with a system that’s usually too insecure for internet use.

Here’s a handy site for people using old operating systems or old software or just where the very latest version of anything is nothing but trouble. http://www.oldversion.com/

All the best,
Alan

annpa · Post by **annpa** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 4:25 pm

Sorry you had problems with ME. We never had any problems with it until a Trojan attacked the norton antivirus. Had to get the PC completely reformatted and use the backup installation disk to reinstall everything. Has been working just as well since. Only reason for getting a Vista laptop was to have something while the PC was being fixed. we now have internet access on the laptop only. Pc not connected to the internet so no likelihood of viruses on it. (yes we are being vigilant about using disks and sticks to ensure no infections!!

Cheers

Annpa