HP printer software turns up uninvited on Windows systems Windows users are reporting that Hewlett Packard's HP Smart application is appearing on their systems, despite them not having any of the manufacturer's hardware attached. While Microsoft has remained tight-lipped on what is happening, folks on various social media platforms noted the app's appearance, which seems to afflict …
Worse yet, HP no longer support the LJ5 with their "generic PCL" driver. Which is sort of the point of a generic driver. Cynical me thinks it's because they can't force "expiration" of the toner. Which is yet another reason I love my LJ5!
And...even though Windows HP supplied driver doesn't support the LJ5, Windows will happily print to the very same LJ5, when it's shared off my Linux Mint system.
But this isn’t even a driver, it’s an ancillary helper app, right?
Microsoft even claims to be getting rid of proprietary drivers, so it's a very reasonable question.
To be clear, Microsoft will begin to phase out providing 3rd-party printer drivers alongside Windows from 2025 - 2027. From the El Reg article on the subject which you linked in your comment:
Manufacturers will, according to Microsoft, "need to provide customers with an alternative means to download and install those printer drivers."
So it's not as if you will no longer be able to install, utilize, and update 3rd-party printer drivers on a machine running Windows. Microsoft just plans to soon no longer take part in the process for you.
IIRC (and I may not, because I'm a Boomer), one of the bullet points for Win[9? 10?], was "hey! no more having to load vendor drivers off tiny CDROMs...we have them all on our servers, so Windows will just install the appropriate driver automatically when you plug your new gadget in!"
So...now we're going back to "insert driver disk"? Two steps forward and one back?
Three steps forward and one step back: Thanks in no small part to Android and iOS, printers have finally "standardized" on using IPP for communications (even over USB!), which means no more drivers for newer printers. All of us with older printers (older than ~2015-2020) will still need drivers, but at least on Windows the story looks rosier than with CUPS also dropping anything that doesn't speak IPP (support is possible -- with locally running IPP servers -- but I don't have confidence on it happening widely).
Anecdata: In my workplace we have four HP networked laser printers (with DNS-SD/ZeroConf enabled) of different vintages (~2005 BW, ~2010 Color MFP, ~2012 Color, ~2017 BW; all but the 2010 have configurable IPP support). On GNU/Linux (cups/cups-browsed), the 2005, 2012, and 2017 printers are detected and configured immediately, the 2010 is detected but not configured (you need to add it manually to your system). On Windows, the 2010 and 2017 are detected (don't quite recall if the 2017 is configured automatically), the 2012 I haven't yet tested, the 2005 is not detected at all (must be configured with IP/Hostname).
If you need "help" sending HP more money, then yes, it's a "helper app".
I certainly wouldn't call the damned thing "innocuous". It's a dreadful bloated pile of crap. It pops up constantly if you try to use an HP device. (Alas, we needed some sort of printer and scanner here at Mountain Fastness 1.0 and my wife bought an HP. I finally fetched my beloved 1992 LaserJet 4MP out of storage, but it's next door at MF 2.0, and I haven't moved my office there yet.) It wants personal and payment information. And if it's not riddled with security holes I'll eat my hat; I've seen what sort of software HP Ink's printer division produces.
It's no secret that HP printers and the associated software have been getting steadily worse for decades. This is just the latest example.
Always accompanied by that chirpy “Shovelware Shite just got installed! Check it out!” popup notification that makes me want to punch someone. Anyone, frankly.
“We just used your bandwidth to stick some rubbish onto your drive without your prior knowledge or consent! No need to thank us!!”
The corporate mothership pushed a Windows update to my (centrally managed) work lappy last weekend. Upon reboot, I was presented with an invitation to log into (I kid you not) Skype for Business.
Even the local IT bod was taken aback. Easily disabled (right in the login box) from starting when Windows boots, but a blast from the past for sure. Teams came up and ran normally.
Why not have ALL versions on Windows install as an OS, pure and simple but maybe with a welcome screen that says something like " Welcome to Windows. We have some great FREE applications that were sure you'll LOVE. Just pop over to www.bloat.windows.com and take your pick of free apps and tantalising tasters"
Or something.
I now feel the need to go and have a shower with carbolic soap and a really aggressive loofah
"I now feel the need to go and have a shower with carbolic soap and a really aggressive loofah"
Sorry, but there is *no* loofah aggressive enough .... unless you tie your loofah to a Bully XL Dog !!!
You need full body 'surface ablation' with lasers ..... only stings a little and you will need to avoid any deodorant sprays or After-shave for a while !!!
:)
What a silly suggestion, why on earth should MS pass up the revenue they can collect from third parties to shovel unwanted shirubbish onto our systems ?
Don't forget that we are no longer the customer, the purveyors of annoying adverts, slurpers of our search histories*, purveyors of questionable games/hardware (especially HP printers these days), and all the general riff-raff of the commercial world are MS's customers.
* Now that the whole system is designed around using the search box to find stuff instead of just filing it sensibly - and that search box configured to pipe everything we do (alongside all the other telemetry) to ... well we don't actually know do we ?
> Why not have ALL versions on Windows install as an OS, pure and simple but maybe with a welcome screen that says something like " Welcome to Windows. We have some great FREE applications that were sure you'll LOVE. Just pop over to www.bloat.windows.com and take your pick of free apps and tantalising tasters"
Because MS doesn't care what *you* want, and doing things your way runs the risk that people might not take the "opportunity" to install One Drive- then pay MS for the extra storage- or get exposed to Candy Crush- and provide advertising eyeballs and microtransaction fees- in the first place.
Remember that this is the same MS that was aggressively upgrading Windows 7 and 8 users to Windows 10 against their explicitly-specified choice in the mid-2010s, and doing so using techniques that even bland, corporate IT publications were comparing to malware.
In Windows, if you go to the Microsoft Store and search for Sprinkler where will be an app with what looks like the poo emoji.
Install that, wait 10 minutes and every festering stain on humanity will be installed...
Note: on OEM systems, the manufacturers poo sprinkler may be pre-installed and you maybe unable to notice any additional applications following the use of the generic windows poo sprinkler.
Am I the only one who sees strange devices advertising their presence that apparently belong to folks who are nearby? One of my neighbors had a Rivian, and it seemed to be offering at least three different bluetooth opportunities to connect. My neighbor on the other side has an HP something that is always in my list of potential wifi access points... It seems possible that the device makers who may be collecting lists of hardware visible from our systems aren't concerned about whether we are authorized to connect to them, or ever have connected to them.
One of my neighbors had a Rivian, and it seemed to be offering at least three different bluetooth opportunities to connect.
Oh, if I knew any hackers I'd invite them round for a couple of days to go to town on that and see just how much damage they could do. I think a large parasitic drain to continually discharge the batteries would be the ultimate goal, but I'm open to suggestions.
> "Would it be that hard for Microsoft to just provide an operating system without needless bloat?"
Of course it wouldn't, but that would be to misunderstand the situation.
MS isn't shoving endless unrequested bloat like Candy Crush onto your computer- or trying to railroad you into using One Drive, or whatever else- because they think it's in *your* interest, nor even do they care about what you want.
They're doing so because it benefits them and/or whoever paid them to put that crap there.
Unless you're a *very* large corporate customer, MS isn't much bothered about your individual needs.
If you're a low-end, low-profit consumer or small business customer, they don't give a toss and don't need to. As the cliché goes, you're not the customer, you're the product.
In other words, shut up and play Candy Crush because we'd quite like some of those microtransaction fees.
Oddly enough, whenever I put a fresh install of Mageia (Linux) on my systems, there is also something HP-related, and likewise, I have always avoided their products.
Past experience has shown that it can be at least turned off, but as it appears to affect nothing when I do this, why is it part of a default install?
Mystery...
John Geek I don't believe I've ever had any HP hardware here, my laser printer is a Brother, my inkjet is a Canon.
What a coincidence! I come from an idle family of typesetters, and attend the First Reform Church Of The Holy Squid... so my brother's a lazy printer and my canon's an ink jet!
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If you do no have an HP printer then you do not have a light to light up and show you are out of HP ink/toner. I bet many of your are. Now you have a free app to tell you to buy some and where you can order genuine HP consumables. When the ink/toner arrives the app can advise you to buy a printer to use up the consumables so you can buy more. After all, what is the point of you owning a computer if you are not buying things from HP?
On a new machine here (win11), with all new applications installed, as soon as I opened an old file I noticed an old printer driver was installed. This machine had gone to recycling long ago, but I assume because the old file had a record of which printer was last used, the OS decided to install the driver (yes it was an HP). I can't see a good reason for this unless you actually try to print it. I have removed it, but it keeps re-appearing so now it will live on, forever reminding us how far we have come in printer driver management, oh hang on....
I don't have an MS account for any of my windows 10 systems. I also use programs like OOUS10 to clear out and block their shite. Then there's classic shell to return a proper start menu.
So when I wanted to install a new HP printer a few years ago... you wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to get drivers.
Epson didn't actually have them for download, instead they insisted you downloaded them from the MS store... which I couldn't, because no account and it's been disabled on my system.
It took hrs of searching and looking around before I finally found some... unlisted and hidden on HP's fucking site.
Then the printer didn't fucking work, so I sent it back and got an Epson instead... which installed in seconds.
I should have learned my lesson 25yrs ago when I got my first HP printer and it was shite.
Bullshit.
They insist on your logging in with an email and password, before you can use "your" printer. And thus they've harvested your organs again.
Instead, delete HP Smart and search for and apply the "Webpack" "IT Driver" which has silly warnings for silly consumers about it's intended audience being corporations not people.
But it works.
I know I'm dating myself but, back in the days of 3.1, '95 and XP, Windows used to install drivers for HP, Epson and other popular models of printers, scanners and other peripherals by itself. I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that recent versions of Windows give a checkbox to let the user decide which drivers to install.
If MS disclaims any knowledge and HP too I would be rather worried about this software might be up to.
The "Trojan" horse was actually made by the beseiging Greeks (bronze age victim blaming :)
If this application contained malware its just infected 100s of millions of machines.
Printer drivers always were and still are a PITA. For non windows, non mac platforms mostly a dead loss. I stick to network (non HP) printers as they normally can at least print generic postscript. Brother appears better at Linux support. One of their printers shares the same engine as my FujiXerox so got lucky there.
I haven't installed any HP devices in a long time (hate them precisely because of this) but their software has always been miserable, fragile bloatware. Of a nature where it gets broken and can neither be uninstalled nor reinstalled (partly thanks to the Windows Installer) without arcane knowledge of the lost black arts of hunt and pokery.
For example, someone that has a 5+ year old computer that's doing just fine and they are happy with the version of Windows they have etc. It does everything they need and more. Uh oh, their printer failed and they need a new one so they bought HP at Staples. It was always both a travesty, and a tragedy, the crippling shitware that went on. You can't just install a minimal driver from .inf files for those devices and the consumer models aren't going to have a plain jane driver for "IT professionals"
This did happen to me, I'm running Windows 11. I didn't understand why it popped up on me, I've had an HP printer for years but it is not directly attached. To be honest, it only makes me nervous because it popped up suddenly for no apparent reason, which is triggering in this age of security risk managment.
HP obviously having a special on printer related fuck-ups this month.
Some metadata updated with November's ssu has kindly borked a not trivial amount of print queues whose xerox hardware are all reporting as HP M101 devices.
So far MS only response has been to delete kb5032306 from everywhere.
It just happened to me, again!
I had already uninstalled the HP Smart app from my Win10 PC, but just now I noticed that it's back again.
The only HP devices I have are old (late 70's) sig gens and freq counters, and they're resting on the shelf.
So far my Win11 lappy has not been infected.
s.
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