DEP incompatibilities HP Deskjet 5550 printing blank pages



I had a frustrating morning last week. I had setup a new pc, transferred data and gotten everything in fairly nice shape. I had got the old printer attached and setup (HP Deskjet 5550). In fact I had done a test page through the printers software at the end of the install process (Some sort of deskjet toolbox software, not Windows test page pattern.) Then we were making sure everything worked and they went to print out a UPS label from Worldship. The printer had come unplugged in the last rearrange, so I plugged power back in and the printer loaded a page, ran the head back and forth twice and spit out a blank page. Oh, we were using a parallel cable – I’ve seen some parallel cable based printers get “flustered” when power is lost and back on (especially if it was in the midst of a job when the power was pulled) – so reboot…


We reboot and I try a windows test page – Comes out blank. And the problem is not that we’re out of ink. In fact it’s not even making the motions of printing, the hewlet packard deskjet 5550 series printer just is loading the paper, running the head back and forth once or twice and spitting out a blank page. Peculiar, I go back to HP’s toolbox. This time I get a nicely printed picture on the sheet of paper and really start wondering what’s up. I tried varying some of windows printer settings to no avail. Then I started the Google research.

It didn’t take long to find the answer and if you’ve read the subject of this post you’ll have a hint. I had enabled DEP for “all programs and services except those I select”, because the idea of using DEP for just essential windows programs and services didn’t seem to go far enough. Unfortunately, HP’s printer drive is not compatible with DEP, so you either need to settle for DEP on Windows programs and services only, OR find a way to make exceptions for the HP software.

Frustrating when something that can be helpful like DEP can’t be implemented for compatibility issues.

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