HP Photosmart C7280 Driver Install Tips

I have fond memory of HP printer products. I remember back in my undergrad years, I hooked up an HP Inkjet 500 that I shared with my 7 other housemates. That thing was a tank. Everyone was printing their paper on it and we probably was using way above its rated cycle, but it worked for years after we abused it. At work, we often encountered HP Laserjet, which were just as tough.

I don’t know about how good the HP hardware is these days, but the software could use some dieting. Isn’t 190 Mb a bit big for a driver? Did the programmers get paid by lines of code? What’s in that thing? A lot of bloatware apparently.  Here’s my tips on what to install:

1. Download the Full Feature driver and not the Basic driver. If you install the basic driver, you’ll only have the ability to print. The scan and fax will not work. The driver is available at this location.
2. Launch Driver.
3. Click on Install.
4. Press Next.
5. Uncheck the Yahoo Toolbar and check the Advance Install. We don’t need the toolbar. Click Next.
6. When prompted whether to automatically check for updates, click No and click next.
7. On install options, select Custom Install. Click Next.
8. On the Custom Installation screen, check only the following:HP Solution Center
   HP Imaging Functions
   OCR Software by I.R.I.S.
   Even if you don’t use the OCR software, you will want to install the OCR software. Without the OCR software, you will not be able to scan to PDF. If you already have Photoshop or something, why bother. HP update would be nice, but takes up memory and resource as a background task. HP do not seem to update their drivers often. Why not just manually check every once in a while. The Web Printing is interesting, but we could do without it. The other stuff is just bloatware.
9. Prompt for EULA, click I agree (what else are you going to do, disagree and have no driver?)
10. Click Next to use default location.
11. Follow the instruction on screen and complete the installation.
12. After installation, launch HP Solution Center.
13. In HP Solution Center, click on settings.
14. Click on Scan settings->Scan to… Setup.
15. Wait for a long time for the front panel list to appear. Select each item you want to be able to select from the LCD panel. Each item you add will appear on the printer’s LCD panel when you select scan to computer on the printer. If you do not select any options, you will not be able to scan to your computer and you will get a message “No scan options”. In my case, I added all of the items.
16. Once all of the items are added, press Update the Device.

At this point the driver should be installed and you have roughly the minimal software for the majority of features.

After installing the driver, make sure you install the Critical Update to Correct a PC to Printer Communication Issue if you are using the wireless connection. Without installing this driver, scan to computers often fail.