HP software now self-destructs in printers

[Vara La Fey]

I refuse most "updates". I think they're rarely worth the hassle or the 
bugs even when issued in good faith, and more and more often they're 
issued maliciously.

HP can spin-control about "protecting intellectual property" all they 
want; these are existing printers where any proprietary genies are 
already out of the bottle. They're just lying-ass price-gouging con artists.

I'm typing this on an old HP Pavilion billed as an "entertainment pc". 
Nearly every laptop in existence has a feature sometimes called "input 
monitor" that allows sound from the mic or line-in to immediately 
(without latency) play back through headphones (but not speakers). It's 
automatic, and is an entirely different (and to a musician recording 
tracks, it's an incalculably superior) feature to the LOSEdows 
high-distortion, high-latency "Listen to this device" feature. Laying 
tracks requires constant quality control: you absolutely have to hear 
what you're playing exactly when you play it - and some instruments are 
best recorded "direct-in" with no external amp/monitor (and thus no 
hassles with mics). Further, if you're laying a track on top of other 
tracks - say, a bass track for your existing drum track - you have to 
hear your run-time bass and your recorded drums precisely together 
without any humanly discernible delay anywhere in the chain.

Guess whether HP inexplicably and inexcusably disabled that feature - 
which nearly every other computer in existence has. Mine is old and I 
cannot find the information about which registry keys (allegedly) 
re-enable it. This HP Pavilion is utterly worthless for the task I 
bought it to perform, and I have no money to replace it.

Worse even than that, is the kinda heartbreaking thread from a musician 
who spent hundreds and hundreds on a Pavilion /when it was new /and then 
found it was exactly as worthless for him - and found that HP absolutely 
would not even /respond /to his repeated requests for help and support 
even back then. The thread still exists on their own forum where he's 
practically begging for support.

More than you wanted to know? It's just so that any would-be HP 
apologists can maybe feel the helpless frustration and rage when a 
customer-hostile and fraudulent company knowingly sabotages their 
product and does not state that they have done so. HP makes a habit of it.

Go out of business, HP. The sooner the better.


On 9/28/2016 12:51 PM, Bob Elzer wrote:
>
> They should be made to state this on the printer and box in bold writing.
> This printer locks out all cartridges that aren't brand new HP cartridges.
>
> See how fast their sales would drop then.
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2016 11:05 AM, "Keith Smith" <techlists at phpcoderusa.com 
> <mailto:techlists at phpcoderusa.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>     http://www.zdnet.com/article/hp-told-disarm-printer-ink-self-destruct-sequence-blocking-third-party-cartridges/
>     <http://www.zdnet.com/article/hp-told-disarm-printer-ink-self-destruct-sequence-blocking-third-party-cartridges/>
>
>     -- 
>     Keith Smith
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