did recent Win10 upgrade render my refillable carts no longer compatible?

[Paul W.]

A couple of days ago I got a msg from MSoft that I was due for a large upgrade. It certainly was large, took close to 1/2 hour. A while back there were warnings in the ink refill community to beware of Win 10 upgrades, that printer drivers would be upgraded whether you wanted them or not. These driver upgrades would render third party refillable cartridges no longer accepting refills. The user would be forced to use only Epson OEM carts.

When I went to my printer, an Epson 1430, to do a routine nozzle check, I noticed the opening page no longer showed "check ink levels" and "perform nozzle check". I was able to get to these tasks by a bit of a roundabout way, no problem. I began to worry, but not so much about this minor inconvenience. This nuisance raised a red flag, it may be the tip of the iceberg, maybe I could no longer refill my carts. (Clearly, the printer is working now... the carts just may no longer be refillable.) I believe these carts are from InkJet Mall, and I think IJM takes good care of their products. Their carts may be immune to compatibility problems. Also, I've heard these automatic driver upgrades only effect more recent printers.

It might help readers to give details... the version number of my upgrade is 1703 and the build number is 15063.540

TIA,

Paul

PS:

 

[palombian]

I already observed you can install a new printer without the setup CD or downloads from the printer manufacturer (in my case Canon), Windows 10 has them built in.

When I see what happened with my good old MX7600 with the major update 16/07/2017 (1703 KB4022405):

>
Device SWD\PRINTENUM\{F2AB18B0-F7A9-4EC6-A696-4B03A8A6427D} was migrated.
Last Device Instance Id: SWD\PRINTENUM\{F2AB18B0-F7A9-4EC6-A696-4B03A8A6427D}
Class Guid: {1ED2BBF9-11F0-4084-B21F-AD83A8E6DCDC}
Location Path:
Migration Rank: 0x0
Present: true
<

Without consequences until now for Canon printers, but this could explain what you experienced with your Epson.

 

[Smile]

If you use a third party software firewall like the windows 10 firewall control from sphinx-soft.com a no-nonsense firewall with presets instead of complicated IP configurations.

Then you have antivirus software on top of the virusbtn.com list
Then you use open source browser like firefox and keep it updated.
Then you have a hardwar route with firewall.

Then most importantly you do not click on links in you email from unknowns sources - you will be safe without any updates. The only updates needed are the ones for software to run properly.

 

[palombian]

I am no specialist, but if my supposition that the printer drivers are updated as part of a Windows OS update is true, how could you block them in the firewall ?

 

[Smile]

AFAIK you can set the windows local policy to not allow updates. It used to be done like this https://social.technet.microsoft.co...ows-update-via-group-policy?forum=winserverGP

I don't know how to do this for win10 as it does not install on any of my PC's. And I like buying older server grade PC's

 

[stratman]

AFAIK you can set the windows local policy to not allow updates.

It depends on which version of Windows 10 you have. The Home version offers very little to no control. Pro will allow you to delay Microsoft updates for weeks but eventually they may be done. The Enterprise version offers pretty much control over the update process.

More importantly for Epson users who refill or use third party chipped cartridges is the ability to avoid silent updates. A decent firewall should allow you to block outgoing and incoming data. My Norton Security software allows blocking of outgoing transmission of data, ie the printer sending info and requests from your computer to Epson, including the dreaded request to look for new firmware and then initiate the update if available.

In Norton Security this list is found by going to Settings / Firewall / Program Control. Once there you will see a list of files that access the internet. It is simple, at that point, to block a file in that list that performs the outgoing request to Epson once you know which file or files to block.

But that's the hard part - knowledge of which file(s) to block. Block the wrong file and you may lose desired function of the printer. Unless you can find out from a Google search which specific file to block then you will have to look up each Epson related file in your firewall's list to see what its purpose is.

This is not difficult but it may be somewhat time consuming to find which file(s) to block. And, none of this has much to do with OP's initial complaint of a Windows 10 upgrade to the Windows 10 Creators Edition (1703) causing third party Epson cartridges to stop working.

I'd like to see the forum talk about this issue that OP mentioned.

 

[The Hat]

When I installed the last print driver for the new Maxify, all my chipped printers got a default reset, yes that’s correct, but none of my unchipped printers were affected in that area, I use the printer colour management to control my colours instead of profiling, now I got to start over again, I didn't reckon I needed to save my setting.

click to enlarge.

On another occasion, all my minimum print margins were set to 5mm, over riding the default settings of 3mm, and my unchipped printers have the advanced Tab greyed out, but not on the chipped models, so they can do all this now.

None of these setting can be altered by Microsoft, otherwise there would be one big law suite, but they do facilitate the likes of Epson and Canon to be able to sneak in and change things without your permission because they have the rights to their own print drivers.

So, beware of installing or upgrading your print drivers, they don’t need to alter the firmware to make significant changes to the average printer...

My Norton Security is locked down tighter than a ducks ass, but it’s helpless when you must install a driver yourself..

 

[stratman]

tighter than a ducks ass

I see you've found the tape measure the Mrs. hid from you again.

 

[stratman]

When I installed the last print driver for the new Maxify, all my chipped printers got a default reset

Canon probably uses the same file(s) or files to store user customization data from the chipped cartridge printers and this was overwritten and replaced with a new empty file(s) waiting to store your "new" customization info. It is also possible this is a registry setting that was overwritten with the Maxify installation.