HP Printer Assistant Problem

I have this HP Printer Assistant which will not open in Vista. HP 2050 and HP 2540 Deskjet Printers both install OK on Vista and will print and scan OK.
When I try to open the Printer Assistant - it goes through the effort and displays an empty page with message in the center top of the page saying - String not Found.
I've uninstalled and reinstalled (using CD's) and got the latest Downloads from HP without any change/improvement.
Today I rang HP Support and allowed their Techo to have a go remotely. He spent 1½hrs trying and could not fix it.
I know this appears to be a problem with HP as per their Forum.
Has anyone experienced this and had it fixed? Neil.

 

I really like HP printing devices, but frankly, about 20 years ago I gave up installing any HP software (except the basic drivers) because it is so buggy and bloated, hogs CPU and RAM resources, and it tends to foist a bunch of other junk on our systems we don't need or want. Over the years, the constant drone of users complaining about it just reinforced my decision. And to be fair, Epson, Canon, Lexmark, and Brother are no better.

And as you probably noticed, pretty much all tech support knows for a fix is to uninstall it, download the latest version and reinstall it. If that does not resolve the problem, they are stuck - so they blame your firewall or anti-malware program.

Fortunately, Windows native support for HP devices is excellent - allowing most users to print and scan without installing the full suite of HP software. For HP network ready devices, you typically can log into the device's internal webpage (by inserting the device's IP address in your browser's address bar) and do just about anything. That's what I do when I need to scan something to my computer, or I use the device's front panel menu.

So, I am sorry that I cannot help you with Printer Assistant but if you tell us what print function you are trying to do, perhaps we can help with that.

 

Thanks Bill for your sympathy. I agree with regards to the quality of the HP printers. It just seems oddball that the printer assistant for both the 2540 and 2050 models I have will not install in Vista!
Both printers will install and operate in XP and W8 comps. Printer Assistant works in both OS's.
Printer assistant allows you to carry out maintenance (ink level check, calibrate, print test page) etc. I can live without it - but what's the Vista holdup?
The Techo tried a couple of Patches and registry changes but apologized before signing off. Neil.

 

Well, it is the same program used for the whole slew of HP devices - so it is not the printers, and probably not the program. Most likely just Vista.

 

My conclusion Bill is the same. Maybe those tales by unhappy users of Vista are true.
As I said, I can live with it but will try to move into W8/8.1 when I can afford it. Neil.