... even their own webservers.
What is it with
HP's services these days? Just about every time I try to get some piece of HP-hardware to work, things grind to a halt, and you'll need an ungodly amount of patience to get it going or to get what you want.
I'm putting together a new printer server at work. Since our current one is getting old (Windows 2000 Server just isn't on par nowadays) and feeble (not to mention it being a standard, albeit beefed up, workstation), I took the task of installing a new one.
I also wanted to get fresh drivers whereas Windows 2003 can't provide drivers for every printer we have.
I needed drivers for 9 different models, and set out to the HP driver server to get them. Shouldn't take too long; a basic driver without the fancy software sets you back about 15MB of hard disk space, and with the current overload on bandwidth, it should be done faster that you can say: "let's chuck that old inkjet into the bin".
Boy, was I wrong.
Every request for a driver takes you to a search page, where you can specify the model of the printer. It takes the HP-server literally
minutes to process the request (that is, when it behaves itself and does not time out in the middle of the query) and provide me a list with possibilities, as there can be several revisions or options to a certain series of printers.
You make your choice, wait for the server to process it, the page refreshes and then it provides you with the exact same list!
So you click again, not to be outdone, and you are finally on the download page for that specific printer, provided it doesn't time out on you -again.
You click on the button for the desired file, you thank $deity for not getting an
EULA which you need to acknowledge first and the requested file is being fetched for you.
Or not, as the server still tends to time out, just for you.
Just when you think about switching to Xerox or Oki, the download window pops up and you are finally able to save it in a directory of your choice, only to see the bits and bytes speeding in at the lightning-like velocity of... 4kB/sec. Like you're on the receiving end of one of those old 33k3 modems which we're tossing in the trash these days by the thousands.
So in the end, downloading 9 drivers takes a whole frikkin' day, a lot of energy and frustration.
You'd think HP's servers are on Mars or something, but no.
Fortunately, I'm nearly finished and the new server can be put to use in the very near future, but man...
I'm glad my printer at home is a small Brother laser printer; no problems whatsoever. \o/
Cheers, K.