Microsoft confirms Smart App issue renaming everyone's printers to HP

No, it isn't your imagination. Windows really is installing the HP Smart App and renaming printers without user interaction. Microsoft has updated its Windows release health dashboard to admit a problem exists. The title of the issue says it all: "Printer names and icons might be changed and HP Smart app automatically installs …

[FF22]

Not a renaming problem

The problem is not that the printers are renamed. Their name stays the same, as it always was. Instead what it happens is that their "type" and the device driver that's used to drive them is what changes. Most likely because there were false/too broad PnP identifier data submitted by HP to them, and because of that the devices are recognized by the system as a specific HP device, instead of what they actually are.

[The Unexpected Bill]

Any printer you want, so long as it's HP...

Some data points, for whatever they might be worth, which probably isn't very much...

Although the indicated type and printer icon definitely did change, the drivers for my printers (including a Brother MFP) remain untouched and functional. Some are network attached, others are local. Microsoft's print to PDF driver also still worked.

There's a managed printer available from my work computer, and thus far, its icon and indicated type have not been affected by this issue.

[Kurgan]

Re: Not a renaming problem

I can confirm. It happened at a customer of mine and I had to remove and reinstall a (non HP) label printer that stopped working because it thought it was some HP shit.

MS is becoming worse every day.

[BobChip]

Re: Not a renaming problem

Don't have any problems like that with Linux. Plays nice with HP laser and Canon Pixma printers, plus a high end Epson scanner. None of which worked reliably or consistently on the same system when using $MS 8 and subsequent releases. Now a very happy Minty penguin and will never look back.

Is it just easier to make reliable device drivers for Linux systems, or have MS just lost the plot?. Not my problem now........

[Anonymous Coward]

@FF22:: Blame HP !!!

@FF22: Not a renaming problem

“The problem is not that the printers are renamed. Their name stays the same, as it always was. Instead what it happens is that their "type" and the device driver that's used to drive them is what changes. Most likely because there were false/too broad PnP identifier data submitted by HP to them, and because of that the devices are recognized by the system as a specific HP device, instead of what they actually are.”

[James O'Shea]

so...

Who should we nuke? Microsoft or HP? Or both. Please say both. Warming up the nuke strike packages now...

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: nuke strike packages

OR...

a $50 billion Class Action lawsuit. Spread that amongst all those unlucky enough to have to use Windows, that will give each of them enough for a Starbucks Flat white.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: nuke strike packages

Why would you want coffee ?

Is your life that pathetic ?

[JoeCool]

Re: nuke strike packages

The point, I beleive, is that the class action framework is pathetic.

[O RLY]

Re: nuke strike packages

Who said anything about coffee? Starbucks doesn't qualify to be called coffee.

Icon to demonstrate another use for the paltry settlement sum.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: nuke strike packages

Is there really any difference between buying a coffee or buying whatever starbucks sells ?

My point is if you go there, you must be very plain person, we all know the type they there biggest surprise of the day is going to starbucks, their answer for a good time is a starbucks, the biggest adventure of their life is to cross the road to starbucks.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: nuke strike packages

Why would you want coffee ?

They don't - that's why they specified Starbucks..

[Andy E]

Many years ago....

...there was a thing called Quality Assurance. I seem to remember it involved a lot of testing. I wonder what happened to it?

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Many years ago....

Welcome to QA, Andy. Help yourself to whatever's in your kitchen - now get on with your testing.

[Peter2]

Re: Many years ago....

It's still conducted. Rigorous testing is performed to ensure that bugs are included in every release.

[katrinab]

Re: Many years ago....

Copilot now does their QA testing.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Many years ago....

QA testing has been greatly expanded, with a multitude of hardware combinations available. The only downside is these QA machines are those of the end user

[desht]

Re: Many years ago....

It's called Windows 11 (at the moment).

[nijam]

Re: Many years ago....

> ... I wonder what happened to it?

It broke.

[Doctor Syntax]

Would this constitute an offence under the Computer Misuse Act?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forcing HP printers into someone's life? Definitely should. In fact, I think the various acts which prohibit "cruel and inhumane" treatment should come into play too

[sedregj]

"Would this constitute an offence under the Computer Misuse Act?"

Minimum tariff: 10 years at Barrow-in-Furness

[Johnb89]

In a way it simplifies things

Having had an hp printer that worked perfectly well with 3rd party cartridges and then didn't I swore I'd never buy another hp thing again. Which matches my policy of never giving microsoft money. In which case I can just sit here finding this funny. Sorry to the rest of you that aren't able to make that choice.

*companies what can't do simple things properly don't get upper case. Its the rules.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

Their logo has been lower case for as long as I can remember.

[Excused Boots]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

lower case to match the quality of their products presumably?

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

hey linux is lower case...bash, comands etc. are you really going to bad mouth linux ?

[martinusher]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

I went the same route. I'd inherited a Laserjet 3300 years ago and it worked perfectly but for one glitch -- if the scanner bulb aged then it would not reset the scanner properly so wouldn't print. This was a bit frustrating since I rarely, if ever, used the scanner and the official HP fix was to replace the entire scanner assembly ($$$$). I did get a replacement bulb for it and essentially dismantled the entire printer around the old one to put it in, that gave me some years extra life, but eventually after a power cut it failed to reset. So out it went. Replaced by some Chinese make that doesn't seem to bother with subscriptions and stuff (I would have changed to a Brother -- had one years ago, it "worked great" but they seem to have swallowed the subscription KoolAid).

The missus, the original owner of the Laserjet, got an HP ink jet. Pile of (expensive) trouble, that thing. I think that I'd rather go back to a fountain pen than buy another HP printer.

The thing is, laser printers have been around since the mid-1980s and they're still fundamentally the same unit as they were 40 years ago**. The amount of intellectual effort that's gone into stuff to make sure it just doesn't work is amazing.

(**Corona Data Systems had one for a PC in the mid-80s.)

[Sceptic Tank]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

3300 years ago is a long time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

Did that model engrave the writing on stone tablets? Wait, no, by that time they were using clay.

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: In a way it simplifies things

It's systemhp !

[captain veg]

trouble is

This happened to me, and it took about 3 seconds to notice and delete the turd.

I just assumed it was deliberate since Microsoft has plenty of form in pushing unwanted programs on to your system, especially since Windows 10. Goodwill? Benefit of the doubt? All burned.

-A.

[Zibob]

Why would ANYTHING be auto installing itself from the store. From windows update is one thing as those are system updates, but a store app?

Its jumping and assuming for sure, but to me that feels like someone is trying to get onto peoples machines zero click style. And that it pushes a driver too which a low level and generally trusted its a pretty worrying situation.

I know, I know, its what I signed up for so on so forth, but that's not only unrequested access to my machine but now is granting third parties the ability to install what ever they like. That is extremely worrying.

I wonder just how bad this could be if it turn out not to be nothing and MS/HP have advertised that whoever wants to can install anything the like. Crypto miners for all? Key loggers?

[katrinab]

They are moving stuff over from the base Windows system to the Microsoft Store, things like notepad, paint, calculator.

I guess I don't particularly have a problem with that, FreeBSD has the same debate from time to time about what belongs in the base image and what belongs in the ports collection.

And, not everyone has a printer, and certainly not everyone has an HP printer, so I guess it makes sense not to have that in the base Windows image. Certainly FreeBSD has Cups and the HP etc drivers in the ports collection.

Obviously Linux is a bit different in that generally the distributions don't have a demarkation between the base image and supplementary packages, everything is in the same repository.

[Sven Coenye]

WIndows Update is not any better

At my previous place of work, we had a couple of network connected Xerox DocuCentre class copiers. During installation, Windows 10 would scan the network, find the copiers, and helpfully (not...) pull in the driver from Windows Update. Only the driver dated to 2006 and it was 2016, did not support the copiers at hand, and ... triggered a BSOD as W10 was not compatible with the driver.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Because people want to be able to just plug in a new device and have it 'just work', that's why.

I'm not saying it's necessarily the best approach, but you did ask the question.

[katrinab]

Could they just licence AirPrint from Apple? That is how printing should be done.

[CowHorseFrog]

Only problem with apple is when they went 64bit they forgot that a lot of old printer drivers are 32bit, making them unusable.

[David Hicklin]

I always use local accounts and thus have never logged onto the "store" - and I will keep it this way for as long as possible !

[Andy Non]

Next step in HP's cunning plan

Automatically subscribe all Windows users to HP ink.

[vtcodger]

Microsoft will respond to the Register

Microsoft will respond to the Register just as soon as they can print out a copy of the draft response and run the response by Management and Legal. But there seems to be some sort of problem printing the draft on their HP printer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Microsoft will respond to the Register

"... there seems to be some sort of problem printing the draft on their HP printer."

Handy hint for HP:

Keep a 'Brother laser printer' on standby ..... they work and don't play stupid games !!!

[FYI:Just received a firmware update automagically from Brother for a Laser Printer that is 10 years old and still working perfectly !!!]

:)

[PRR]

Re: Microsoft will respond to the Register

> received a firmware update automagically from Brother for a Laser Printer that is 10 years old and still working perfectly !!!

My Brother MFC-J825*** ink-jet is over 10 years old, works perfectly 999 pages out of 1000, and never gets updates (which is better than "needing" updates).

Ah, when I went to Bro's site I find recent driver updates, going back near 20 years. Nothing important.

What I just noticed: The CamelCamelCamel (Amazon tracker) price soared 10X from 2013 to 2023!! If I'd stored this beast for a decade it would be the best investment in my 'portfolio', by far!

[Tim13]

Re: Microsoft will respond to the Register

Brother MFC-9840 color laser, from 2008 fully functional - has postscript, no funky PCL. Just scanned 2 documents…

[Kev99]

The problem is simple. Mictosoft is paying back its lead sycophant, HP, for all the arse licking they did to make people upgrade first to win10 and then to win11.

[navarac]

HP....

....yet another reason to avoid the brand.

[Mr Dogshit]

PC LOAD LETTER

[MrDamage]

Menu -> Settings -> Paper Handling -> A4/Letter Override needs to be switched on.

Don't blame the equipment because nobody could RTFM.

[bertkaye]

HP Daleks on parade

A clue may lie in the Windows message in Hindi: "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Offshoring ... quality control ... not a problem

[yossarianuk]

If you don't want bloatware you cannot uininstall

Just run Linux.

[Stu J]

Re: If you don't want bloatware you cannot uininstall

I'm so so glad I barely ever have to deal with Windows any more.

[f4ff5e1881]

Re: If you don't want bloatware you cannot uininstall

I appreciate the sentiment, but 'Just' is the wrong word. It takes a considerable amount of research, testing, planning, and perhaps a dollop of faith, to migrate one's personal computer setup from one operating system to another. For your average techie, who may have grown weary and exasperated as to what Windows has become and is becoming, there's the drive (and technical challenge) to make it happen. For Joe Public, the situation is not so clear-cut.

But I agree, the more Windows becomes irksome and more trouble than its worth, the more people will feel that pull towards a viable alternative.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If you don't want bloatware you cannot uininstall

Yep. Linux loses Joe Public at "choose a distribution, here's a handy description of how they differ".

And if some friendly techie friend gets them past that with a trustworthy recommendation, the next question is "what desktop interface do you want?", and that's already two more choices than Joe Public wants to make. They just want to get stuff done online and are not interested in the fine distinctions.

Unfortunately, the mainstream Linux world does not want to meet the public where they are, and instead insists that the public must come to it.

[CowHorseFrog]

And people wonder why Microsoft products get exploited all the time , when they allow crap like this to be possible.

I suppose it could be worse, if WIndows was from Atlassian...

[Meetoo998]

Misinformation by Microsoft

I have the Windows Store disabled via Firewall and HP Smart keeps on sneaking back in after UNinstalling. I am using Windows 11 Pro.

[danielfgom]

Makes me love using Linux exclusively all the more... :-)

On a more serious note, this is nuts! Especially if Server is doing this! In Enterprise we ran all our corporate printers off a print server and each one had it name by department because it was a large facility with about 35 printers of all tpyes. This will be chaos if it suddenly renames them all HP!!!!!!!

What the F are Microsoft doing? amateur hour....

[Amused Bystander]

Not just printers

Wife's company gave her a new Dell laptop, because she works from home a lot. I opened the router's UI to get the guest password (I always forget it - too long to remember. The Dell Inspiron is listed as a Macbook Pro...?