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I've recently upgraded a machine to Windows 7 x64. This machine has a 1012 printer attached. According to HP's site, the printer is no going to be supported in Windows 7. Are there generic drivers that may suffice?

Is there even such a thing as a generic printer driver?

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Curious to see if anyone has a solution, I'm having trouble as well with 64 bit Windows and HP printers... – Ivo Flipse♦ Mar 16 '10 at 16:58
How about using a Linux/*BSD box with CUPS as a print server? You should be able to make the LaserJet 1012 available to your Win7 box as a generic postscript printer. I know of a couple HP printers with no Windows 7 drivers that are supported just fine on Fedora/Ubuntu (one with official HP drivers, even). – Mark Johnson Jul 9 '10 at 23:06
If you've got the professional, ultimate or enterprise edition of Win7, there's always XP Mode (Real Windows XP running inside of a virtual machine), too. Install the XP drivers in the VM and share the printer... – Mark Johnson Jul 9 '10 at 23:17
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3 Answers

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Low-end HP printers (ie: Home-use ones) are 'host-based'-only printers. Meaning they use the computer's CPU to do the printing processing, and require a specific driver to do it. This keeps the price low, but the major trade-off is (as you've discovered) when the printer gets end-of-life'd by the manufacturer they stop making drivers, and the printers aren't compatible with any other drivers.

You can try the HP "universal" printer driver, but the 1012 isn't on the supported printer list, and from trying to get 1012's working with Vista in the past personally, it's not going to happen (even with a hacked apart XP driver), especially when you throw 64-bit into the mix.

Bascially, if you buy a sub-$200 laser printer, expect to replace it whenever you replace your OS with something a couple years newer than the printer. :)

If you want to keep the same printer for years and years, and have the most compatibility regardless of system, then aim for a printer that uses the PCL and/or Postscript printer languages.

Sorry I don't have better news.

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+1 Same experience here. Printer was cheap and cheerful at the time but support for new OSs is poor and that can be expected for sub $200 unit – Dave M Mar 16 '10 at 17:27
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up vote 2 down vote

Unfortunately, the HP LJ 1012 is a "host-based" printer meaning that the print processing is done mostly on the PC. It doesn't use Postscript or PCL5/6 as the printing language but uses a propietary printing language. That makes it hard to use another driver to talk to it.

As techie007 just said, HP's Universal Print Driver (UPD) does not support host-based printers like this.

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The LaserJet 1015 drivers seem to work just fine.

  • Under "Devices and Printers", choose "Add a printer"
  • You will most likely need to press the "Windows Update" button to get an updated list
  • Choose HP LaserJet 1015 and print a test page
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