Can't get old laser printer to actually print with Win 10

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Tomahawk66

181 posts

Master Geek

#250723 23-May-2019 07:58

Hi all,

I've been tearing my hair out for months trying and always failing to get my old (but like brand new) Konica Minolta PagePro 1400W black and white laser printer to actually print.

This Windows 10 computer has some kind of issue recognising the printer being there. I have the installation disk that came with the printer. That does not work. I click on the 'set up printer' button and nothing happens.

I have managed to get the computer to recognise that the printer is there though without using the disk. I have run troubleshooting and everything I can see to run. It comes back always saying that the printer is set up correctly and is ready to go.

BUT..... when you send something to the printer to print, it goes but it gets stuck waiting in the queue to print. And it stays there forever until I eventually delete it.

I've googled searched and downloaded a few printer drivers but on further research have not installed them for fear of nasties hidden in the software.

This printer will work on my old Win 7 laptop. But I would love to get it to work on this, my desktop Win 10 machine which is the one I use all the time.

If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Dee

Yogi02

238 posts

Master Geek

#2243407 23-May-2019 08:01

https://www.konicasupport.com/2016/10/konica-minolta-pagepro-1400w-driver-download.html

Download the Win10 drivers, If the printer is old, the disk will no longer have the relevant drivers on it.

You may need to delete the priner from your PC first

Tomahawk66

181 posts

Master Geek

#2243410 23-May-2019 08:26

Yogi02:

https://www.konicasupport.com/2016/10/konica-minolta-pagepro-1400w-driver-download.html

Download the Win10 drivers, If the printer is old, the disk will no longer have the relevant drivers on it.

You may need to delete the priner from your PC first

Thanks Yogi02,

Did that, got the new driver from your link (thank you) but it still failed and says the exact same thing. I have taken screen shots of the steps and what it says on the fail which I will post later on today.

trig42

5809 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2243420 23-May-2019 09:08

Is it a USB printer?

Have you tried a different USB cable and/or a different USB port?

Oblivian

7296 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2243425 23-May-2019 09:20

Probably one of those odd USB controllers like Epson use to have that needed a virtual device before loading a driver.

pagePro 1400W

(Standard)

GDI

Those -s = not supported (even driver level) which doesn't bode well. https://www.konicaminolta.eu/eu-en/general/support/new-os-compatibility/windows-10

A GDI driver being format to Graphics/2-way control before spooling I believe vs direct PCL/Postscript like we have now.

Don't forget that Major W10 releases have a habit of dropping off older device support suddenly too

Hammerer

2476 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2243641 23-May-2019 11:46

Tomahawk66:

Yogi02:

https://www.konicasupport.com/2016/10/konica-minolta-pagepro-1400w-driver-download.html

Did that, got the new driver from your link (thank you) but it still failed and says the exact same thing. I have taken screen shots of the steps and what it says on the fail which I will post later on today.

Konicasupport.com is not an official Konica/Minolta website. It screenscrapes the Japanese webpages and provides a bad English translation.

The readme and license files appear to be from 2006 at the latest (but later than 2003 when the companies merged. The readme version is 1.2.0 but the driver files appear to have been modified by Minolta in 2013. The driver version appears to be included in the file name so it looks like version 1.6.0.

The driver is only 32-bit despite it the website saying it works for Windows 64-bit. So do you have 32-bit Windows 10 or 64-bit Windows 10?

Official support for our region is actually through konicaminolta.com (also .us, .eu, etc. as you see in @Oblivian's post above). But as @Oblivian pointed out thee is no official support for the PagePro 1400W on Windows 10:

https://www.biz.konicaminolta.com/download/compatible/win_10/#a4bw

You could try the PagePro 1350W or any other driver which is for a similar W-series A4 B/W printer from the same era with Windows 10 support. This approach sometimes works. In this case, the printer drivers are version 1.7.1 so it might iron out the issue with the 1.6.0 driver you tried:

https://www.biz.konicaminolta.com/download/driver.html#mainContents

I'm amazed that GDI printer support still works on Windows 10 for any of these printers given that it has been gradually overtaken by other technologies since Windows XP.

GDI is the original method Windows used to generate graphic images on screen. Microsoft then provided the means to generate the same images on a printed page which meant that cheap GDI printers didn't have to have a graphics processor to assemble the print page. GDI printers simply receive a raster (dot) image and print it. Most other page printers are more expensive because they receive printer control commands (PCL, PostScript) that the printer has to process to generate the raster image.

GDI printers were also more difficult to use as network printers because the image had to be generated at the workstation or server. Other OS like Linux didn't usually have drivers to generate the GDI image.

Tomahawk66

181 posts

Master Geek

#2244353 24-May-2019 06:25

trig42:

Is it a USB printer?

Have you tried a different USB cable and/or a different USB port?

Can't change the USB cable but have tried different ports. Printer works fine on Win 7 .

Tomahawk66

181 posts

Master Geek

#2244354 24-May-2019 06:29

Hammerer:

Tomahawk66:

Yogi02:

https://www.konicasupport.com/2016/10/konica-minolta-pagepro-1400w-driver-download.html

Did that, got the new driver from your link (thank you) but it still failed and says the exact same thing. I have taken screen shots of the steps and what it says on the fail which I will post later on today.

Konicasupport.com is not an official Konica/Minolta website. It screenscrapes the Japanese webpages and provides a bad English translation.

The readme and license files appear to be from 2006 at the latest (but later than 2003 when the companies merged. The readme version is 1.2.0 but the driver files appear to have been modified by Minolta in 2013. The driver version appears to be included in the file name so it looks like version 1.6.0.

The driver is only 32-bit despite it the website saying it works for Windows 64-bit. So do you have 32-bit Windows 10 or 64-bit Windows 10?

Official support for our region is actually through konicaminolta.com (also .us, .eu, etc. as you see in @Oblivian's post above). But as @Oblivian pointed out thee is no official support for the PagePro 1400W on Windows 10:

https://www.biz.konicaminolta.com/download/compatible/win_10/#a4bw

You could try the PagePro 1350W or any other driver which is for a similar W-series A4 B/W printer from the same era with Windows 10 support. This approach sometimes works. In this case, the printer drivers are version 1.7.1 so it might iron out the issue with the 1.6.0 driver you tried:

https://www.biz.konicaminolta.com/download/driver.html#mainContents

I'm amazed that GDI printer support still works on Windows 10 for any of these printers given that it has been gradually overtaken by other technologies since Windows XP.

GDI is the original method Windows used to generate graphic images on screen. Microsoft then provided the means to generate the same images on a printed page which meant that cheap GDI printers didn't have to have a graphics processor to assemble the print page. GDI printers simply receive a raster (dot) image and print it. Most other page printers are more expensive because they receive printer control commands (PCL, PostScript) that the printer has to process to generate the raster image.

GDI printers were also more difficult to use as network printers because the image had to be generated at the workstation or server. Other OS like Linux didn't usually have drivers to generate the GDI image.

Thanks so much for this info Hammerer, will try with the pagepro 1350W. Will report back in a day or so. Thank you.

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Tomahawk66

181 posts

Master Geek

#2246601 27-May-2019 16:58

Downloaded the driver for the 1350 model etc from the links provided (thanks). Set it up, it said it was set up correctly etc but once again won't print. It sends the document to the print queue where it then says there is an error. The little icon that shows up alongside the document is a weird microsoft one I think and must be part of the problem ( I sent a Word Doc and a PDF file to print) and each time it didn't display them, it displayed the microsoft?? icon.

So I now figuring there is nothing more I can do ??