How to install a printer to Vista when the maker doesn't supply drivers

[Micky]

This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.

I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.

A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."

Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?


To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

[philo]

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."

I still do a lot of computer repair work and do sometimes have to use
drivers from another version of Windows.

They work fine but there are a few things you need to know:


1) You need to be aware that a 64 bit driver must be used with a 64bit
OS and of course 32 bit driver for 32 bit OS


2) A driver that is a self-extracting executable may need to be run in
the "compatibility" mode ...or...the files may need to be extracted first.

[Micky]

Post by philo

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."

I still do a lot of computer repair work and do sometimes have to use
drivers from another version of Windows.
1) You need to be aware that a 64 bit driver must be used with a 64bit
OS and of course 32 bit driver for 32 bit OS

Okay.

Post by philo
2) A driver that is a self-extracting executable may need to be run in
the "compatibility" mode ...or...the files may need to be extracted first.

But doesn't number 2 assume there actually is a driver for Vista or
even for 7, when in this case, the last driver on the Brother support
page is for XP?

[Charlie]

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

You ran into one of the reasons I stopped considering Brother printers.
As I understand it the 6800 is a "windows Printer", and uses a Microsoft
"universal driver". The driver has been changed several times since the
6800 was new. I'd have to say that getting it to work may be a bigger
hassle than it's worth. But, you also need to know that a web search of
Microsoft's driver library may be useful.

[Micky]

Post by Charlie

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

You ran into one of the reasons I stopped considering Brother printers.
As I understand it the 6800 is a "windows Printer", and uses a Microsoft
"universal driver". The driver has been changed several times since the
6800 was new. I'd have to say that getting it to work may be a bigger
hassle than it's worth.

So it might not even work in win7 or later then? Maybe that's why
I got it for free. (I thought it was because she had a business and
did high volume printing, and was having trouble finding more toner. I
otoh print little, especially in color, and did find one place with
more toner.)

Post by Charlie
But, you also need to know that a web search of
Microsoft's driver library may be useful.

I will check that out. Downloading now.

Thank you both.

BTW, I forgot to say that I realize, if the printer really worked with
the win7 drivers, Brother might just have provided them on their
webpage, along with the XP drivers. Do you think the fact they
didn't means they actually tried and the printer didn't work? Or
they just figured, Let's move on.

[Mayayana]

| BTW, I forgot to say that I realize, if the printer really worked with
| the win7 drivers, Brother might just have provided them on their
| webpage, along with the XP drivers. Do you think the fact they
| didn't means they actually tried and the printer didn't work? Or
| they just figured, Let's move on.

Microsoft has allegedly built in better generic
support. I've run into the same thing with an HP
printer, but I haven't yet had to find out whether
the MS support actually works. (Even if it does,
there's the question of scanner applets, printer
proerties, etc. I doubt the Windows version will
be as complete.)

Either way, MS doesn't write 3rd-party drivers.
In other words, what the Brother site is telling
you is that they don't provide drivers for Win7
but that Win7 may be able to run it without a
driver. (Like the HP site, they're being cagey
about it; not entirely admitting that they simply
don't support NT6.) So you can't copy some kind
of Windows Brother MFC-6800 driver from Win7.
But you *might* get the printer recognized on
Win7.

It's not really the fault of Brother or HP or any
other company. They made a printer and provided
Windows drivers. Then MS came out with a new
version of Windows (Vista), which was a notable
departure from previous versions.

[Micky]

On Fri, 8 Jan 2016 09:22:04 -0500, "Mayayana"

Post by Mayayana
| BTW, I forgot to say that I realize, if the printer really worked with
| the win7 drivers, Brother might just have provided them on their
| webpage, along with the XP drivers. Do you think the fact they
| didn't means they actually tried and the printer didn't work? Or
| they just figured, Let's move on.
Microsoft has allegedly built in better generic
support. I've run into the same thing with an HP
printer, but I haven't yet had to find out whether
the MS support actually works. (Even if it does,
there's the question of scanner applets, printer
proerties, etc. I doubt the Windows version will
be as complete.)
Either way, MS doesn't write 3rd-party drivers.
In other words, what the Brother site is telling
you is that they don't provide drivers for Win7
but that Win7 may be able to run it without a
driver. (Like the HP site, they're being cagey
about it; not entirely admitting that they simply
don't support NT6.) So you can't copy some kind
of Windows Brother MFC-6800 driver from Win7.
But you *might* get the printer recognized on
Win7.

So even once I'm using win7, the simple print functions might work,
but the fax and scanning that it knows how to do in XP might well not.
???

Maybe I'd be better off looking for a new model Brother all-in-one
that DOES have drivers for 7 and 8 and seeing if they work for this
all-in-one. ???

Post by Mayayana
It's not really the fault of Brother or HP or any
other company. They made a printer and provided
Windows drivers. Then MS came out with a new
version of Windows (Vista), which was a notable
departure from previous versions.

[posterboy]

Post by Micky
On Fri, 8 Jan 2016 09:22:04 -0500, "Mayayana"

Post by Mayayana
| BTW, I forgot to say that I realize, if the printer really worked with
| the win7 drivers, Brother might just have provided them on their
| webpage, along with the XP drivers. Do you think the fact they
| didn't means they actually tried and the printer didn't work? Or
| they just figured, Let's move on.
Microsoft has allegedly built in better generic
support. I've run into the same thing with an HP
printer, but I haven't yet had to find out whether
the MS support actually works. (Even if it does,
there's the question of scanner applets, printer
proerties, etc. I doubt the Windows version will
be as complete.)
Either way, MS doesn't write 3rd-party drivers.
In other words, what the Brother site is telling
you is that they don't provide drivers for Win7
but that Win7 may be able to run it without a
driver. (Like the HP site, they're being cagey
about it; not entirely admitting that they simply
don't support NT6.) So you can't copy some kind
of Windows Brother MFC-6800 driver from Win7.
But you *might* get the printer recognized on
Win7.

So even once I'm using win7, the simple print functions might work,
but the fax and scanning that it knows how to do in XP might well not.
???
Maybe I'd be better off looking for a new model Brother all-in-one
that DOES have drivers for 7 and 8 and seeing if they work for this
all-in-one. ???

Post by Mayayana
It's not really the fault of Brother or HP or any
other company. They made a printer and provided
Windows drivers. Then MS came out with a new
version of Windows (Vista), which was a notable
departure from previous versions.

I've run into this with the Brother MFC-465CN. I bought a Win8.1
machine and Brother didn't bother to update their driver for that OS.
They do say on their support site that Win8 has a driver built in but
not all of the functions will be supported, and indeed the printer will
print and scan but not fax, and there is no Brother Control Panel
available for it.

But I will disagree with Mayayana - that it is Brothers fault for not
supporting a perfectly good machine; it shouldn't be that difficult to
write the software for these machines to keep all their functionality
when a new operating system comes out, even if it takes them a while to
do it.

John.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <n6pdm0$jtv$***@dont-email.me>, posterboy <***@john.com>
writes:
[]

Post by posterboy
But I will disagree with Mayayana - that it is Brothers fault for not
supporting a perfectly good machine; it shouldn't be that difficult to
write the software for these machines to keep all their functionality
when a new operating system comes out, even if it takes them a while to
do it.
John.

I think the problem has become that we now accept the situation as
standard, that printing and scanning _need_ drivers at all, at least for
the basic functions. For scanning, especially, it is surely not rocket
science this far into the 21st century to scan lines of pixels into a
raster; even for printing, at a basic level, I don't comprehend why the
conversion into a raster image that the printer can handle should be
that difficult either. FGS, we almost had it with "EPSON-compatible"
printing in impact ("dot matrix") days; I never understood why we just
accepted a reversion to lots of proprietary schemes. AFAICS, the OS
should be able to produce a raster image from your text, image, or
whatever, at assorted resolutions, which the printer _firmware_ should
accept. (Any refinements such as "droplet enhancement technology" should
be transparent - perhaps presenting as a higher nominal resolution, or
whatever, since that's their purpose.)

For scanning, at the switch from XP to 7, there was (is?) some small
(Australian I think?) company that implemented this, more or less: they
made it possible to use a scanner that "wouldn't work in 7" by (AFAICS)
some sort of generic driver. (Unfortunately, they had to charge for
their software a sum similar - here in UK, at least - to the price of a
second-hand scanner that _would_ work with 7, so many people opted to
just do that rather than buy the software.)

[Wolf K]

On 2016-01-08 17:39, posterboy wrote:
[...]

Post by posterboy
But I will disagree with Mayayana - that it is Brothers fault for not
supporting a perfectly good machine; it shouldn't be that difficult to
write the software for these machines to keep all their functionality
when a new operating system comes out, even if it takes them a while to
do it.
John.

I agree with Mayayana. Why should a manufacturer supply free updates to
drivers for obsolete machines?

Even if it's "not that difficult", it takes time, and programmer time is
expensive. In addition, there's testing, which will likely take even
more time. There are lots of weird hardware-OS combos out there.

How much extra would you be willing to pay for extended driver support?
Most people don't even want to pay an extra 10-20% for an extended
warranty.

I've had a similar problem in the past, only worse: a perfectly good, 6
year old printer for which the maker stopped supplying the print-head
(it holds the ink cartridges).

[Paul]

Post by Wolf K
[...]

Post by posterboy
But I will disagree with Mayayana - that it is Brothers fault for not
supporting a perfectly good machine; it shouldn't be that difficult to
write the software for these machines to keep all their functionality
when a new operating system comes out, even if it takes them a while to
do it.
John.

I agree with Mayayana. Why should a manufacturer supply free updates to
drivers for obsolete machines?

If Brother wants to sell ink cartridges or toner
for their products, they would provide drivers.
It's their choice.

They don't make money on "teaser-printer" setups,
and only the profit on cartridges is what makes
the cheap printer strategy work.

Obviously, for hardware with no recurring purchases,
providing drivers is a losing proposition. Thus
my fabulous $500 frame grabber long ago, came
with only one driver, and the device was obsolete
on the very next OS revision.

Paul

[Wolf K]

Post by Paul

Post by Wolf K
[...]

Post by posterboy
But I will disagree with Mayayana - that it is Brothers fault for not
supporting a perfectly good machine; it shouldn't be that difficult to
write the software for these machines to keep all their functionality
when a new operating system comes out, even if it takes them a while to
do it.
John.

I agree with Mayayana. Why should a manufacturer supply free updates to
drivers for obsolete machines?

If Brother wants to sell ink cartridges or toner
for their products, they would provide drivers.
It's their choice.

True, but the market for them shrinks as the printers age. At what point
would you stop making cartridges for older printers? Especially if they
fit only one or two models? Not an easy business decision, I think. ;-)

Fewer toners/inks are now stocked the usual vendors. I now have to
special order the toner for the DCP-7040 at my local office supplier. I
haven't checked Staples, but they too stock a smaller range now.

[...]

[rwwink]

If I could step in this discussion...I installed an HP 500GN laser
printer on a Windows 7 64X box. I have the printer on a WIFI print
server I don't know if what I did in applicable but
First, I had to open the drives and printers, then add a device, then
setup a standard TCP/IP port with the printer name.
Second I D/Ld and installed the print drivers for 64x Vista in the
comparability mode for a 5200 Series printer (one model newer, same
basic printer). I restarted the computer, turned on the print server
and the printer and have been printing to this network printer since.
I know that's not all of the steps but what it does show is that if
you setup a port and use drivers for a slightly different model/os,
you should be able to get the printer installed.
R. Wink

Post by Wolf K
[...]

Post by posterboy
But I will disagree with Mayayana - that it is Brothers fault for not
supporting a perfectly good machine; it shouldn't be that difficult to
write the software for these machines to keep all their functionality
when a new operating system comes out, even if it takes them a while to
do it.
John.

I agree with Mayayana. Why should a manufacturer supply free updates to
drivers for obsolete machines?
Even if it's "not that difficult", it takes time, and programmer time is
expensive. In addition, there's testing, which will likely take even
more time. There are lots of weird hardware-OS combos out there.
How much extra would you be willing to pay for extended driver support?
Most people don't even want to pay an extra 10-20% for an extended
warranty.
I've had a similar problem in the past, only worse: a perfectly good, 6
year old printer for which the maker stopped supplying the print-head
(it holds the ink cartridges).

[David H. Lipman]

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

Philo has the way to go.

It is often the installer, not the Printer Drivers, that is the issue.

Putting the installer in Compatibility Mode will often be the key. Just
create a ShortCut ( LNK ) to the SETUP.EXE and put it in Compatibility Mode
for execution.

Additionally I will use Universal Extractor to extract the Printer Drivers
and then install the printer.

When installing Print Drivers on a NT Print Share on Windows Server it
doesn't care if what OS is related to the Print Drivers pushed to the Domain
Participant. It only cares if they are 32bit or 64bit.

It is bloated installers like HP AIO OTC Retail devices that present the
most problem in that their software has IE and OS dependencies as well as
being highly OS instrusive.

[VanguardLH]

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

The "Add Printer" wizard includes several Brother MFC models. Pick one
with a similar feature set as yours.

http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002643_001

Yep, that's what they suggest, too.

I have BITS and WU services disabled and only enable them when *I* want
to get updates - and then review each one because Microsoft has turned
some of them into adware for Win10 or want to install updates for
software that is NOT installed and will NOT be used. The Windows Update
in the printer wizard uses WU; however, I'm pretty sure I have
previously used this method to enlarge the list of embedded drivers in
Windows 7.

If that doesn't find a printer driver for your model then you use one
listed that is close to your model. Alas, Brother and almost all
(perhaps all) never list the family of printers supported by a
particular driver and version.

http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002644_000

That lists the MFC-6800 at the bottom of the article. They expect you
to get their driver that they gave Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't write
those drivers. They get them from the hardware vendors who want their
drivers available within a Windows distribution or via the WU source.

You sure the Windows XP printer driver won't work?

[Charlie]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

The "Add Printer" wizard includes several Brother MFC models. Pick one
with a similar feature set as yours.
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002643_001
Yep, that's what they suggest, too.
I have BITS and WU services disabled and only enable them when *I* want
to get updates - and then review each one because Microsoft has turned
some of them into adware for Win10 or want to install updates for
software that is NOT installed and will NOT be used. The Windows Update
in the printer wizard uses WU; however, I'm pretty sure I have
previously used this method to enlarge the list of embedded drivers in
Windows 7.
If that doesn't find a printer driver for your model then you use one
listed that is close to your model. Alas, Brother and almost all
(perhaps all) never list the family of printers supported by a
particular driver and version.
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002644_000
That lists the MFC-6800 at the bottom of the article. They expect you
to get their driver that they gave Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't write
those drivers. They get them from the hardware vendors who want their
drivers available within a Windows distribution or via the WU source.
You sure the Windows XP printer driver won't work?

I agree that the installers can be a major issue when you try to use an
older driver. In a few instances, with older windows versions and even
older printer drivers, we were able to grab an installed printer driver
package that worked, manually add it, including registry entries, and
get it to work. Haven't had to do that in quite a few years.

Microsoft's "universal" driver scheme is told what to do by/with several
other modules, (dlls, etc) that are usually supplied by the printer mfr
when the printer is a "windows printer". This reduced the cost of the
printer hardware and firmware. The downside is additional loading of the
PC. The scheme has been around since the 90's. The 6800 is referred to
as a "GDL" printer.

When this became more popular, it was almost the death of consumer ASCII
capable printers. The business printers commonly have postscript
or similar capabilities. A "postscript" printer may be capable of
graphics postscript, and have limited capability in other postscript
areas. (Think bitmapped graphics with a postscript wrapper)

[Micky]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

The "Add Printer" wizard includes several Brother MFC models. Pick one
with a similar feature set as yours.
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002643_001
Yep, that's what they suggest, too.
I have BITS and WU services disabled and only enable them when *I* want
to get updates - and then review each one because Microsoft has turned
some of them into adware for Win10 or want to install updates for
software that is NOT installed and will NOT be used. The Windows Update
in the printer wizard uses WU; however, I'm pretty sure I have
previously used this method to enlarge the list of embedded drivers in
Windows 7.
If that doesn't find a printer driver for your model then you use one
listed that is close to your model. Alas, Brother and almost all
(perhaps all) never list the family of printers supported by a
particular driver and version.

That would be nice. Maybe they think that will extend the life of
their printers and they'll sell fewer? And their model numbering
systems are often all over the place so you can't guess what's similar
because of similar numbers.

Post by VanguardLH
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002644_000
That lists the MFC-6800 at the bottom of the article. They expect you
to get their driver that they gave Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't write
those drivers. They get them from the hardware vendors who want their
drivers available within a Windows distribution or via the WU source.
You sure the Windows XP printer driver won't work?

No, I'm not. I didnt' even install under XP, because at the time,
the computer was in the basement and the basement was full of junk and
there was nowhere within USB cable range to put a second printer. (so
I bought a wireless all in one and put that upstairs, but it's inkjet
and already going through ink. ) I guess the next step is to
connect this thing via USB and try a) the XP drivers, b) to go through
the probably many Brother printers looking for one that's similar.
Well there aren't that many, 20 or so.

[Dominique]

Post by Micky
I guess the next step is to
connect this thing via USB and try a) the XP drivers, b) to go through
the probably many Brother printers looking for one that's similar.
Well there aren't that many, 20 or so.

Try installing the driver before connecting the USB cable. Good luck.

[Micky]

On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 00:46:42 -0000 (UTC), Dominique

Post by Dominique

Post by Micky
I guess the next step is to
connect this thing via USB and try a) the XP drivers, b) to go through
the probably many Brother printers looking for one that's similar.
Well there aren't that many, 20 or so.

Try installing the driver before connecting the USB cable. Good luck.

Okay, thanks.

[Bill Bradshaw]

You might find something useful here:

http://support.brother.com/g/b/oslist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us
--
<Bill>

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

[Micky]

Post by Bill Bradshaw
http://support.brother.com/g/b/oslist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us

Thanks. I've been to a page almost just like this one. It says Vista
is supported, but they are kidding.

This is all it has for Vista:

Scanner Resolution Improvement Tool (WIA)
This tool will expand the maximum scanning resolution capability and
allow you to scan legal size documents. 12/03/2009
(1.13.0.0) 0.17 MB

[Paul in Houston TX]

Post by Micky
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Did you check here for a work-around?
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardware-devices/4360-brother-mfc-6800-driver.html

[Micky]

On Fri, 08 Jan 2016 18:09:49 -0600, Paul in Houston TX

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Did you check here for a work-around?
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardware-devices/4360-brother-mfc-6800-driver.html

Thanks. This is certainly right on topic and I didn't find it when I
looked.

They're all having trouble but one guy got the scanner to work!!! but
not the printer.

I'll try their suggestions, even if they didnt' work for them!

If I don't say it elsewhere, thank you all. It's not like I didnt'
know about the stories that Vista didnt' have enough drivers for it.
I'm only using because a friend gave me the computer. Of course this
printer will apparently give me trouble with win7 too!

[Bill Bradshaw]

If you have not looked at the attached site review it.

http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us_ot&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002643_001

I had a problem with my old parallel port HP r80xi not being listed until I
went through "the printer that I want is not listed" steps. This allows it
to print but not scan.

I did see a suggestion to install the drivers for the HL720 (it appears that
this will at least allow you to print).
--
<Bill>

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

Post by Micky
On Fri, 08 Jan 2016 18:09:49 -0600, Paul in Houston TX

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Did you check here for a work-around?
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardware-devices/4360-brother-mfc-6800-driver.html

Thanks. This is certainly right on topic and I didn't find it when I
looked.
They're all having trouble but one guy got the scanner to work!!! but
not the printer.
I'll try their suggestions, even if they didnt' work for them!
If I don't say it elsewhere, thank you all. It's not like I didnt'
know about the stories that Vista didnt' have enough drivers for it.
I'm only using because a friend gave me the computer. Of course this
printer will apparently give me trouble with win7 too!

[Micky]

Post by Bill Bradshaw
If you have not looked at the attached site review it.
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us_ot&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us&faqid=faq00002643_001
I had a problem with my old parallel port HP r80xi not being listed until I
went through "the printer that I want is not listed" steps. This allows it
to print but not scan.

I print about 100 times as much as I scan, and scananing with an
inkject printer doesn't use any ink!

Post by Bill Bradshaw
I did see a suggestion to install the drivers for the HL720 (it appears that

Wow, this is great. And the same technique might work for 7, 8, and
10.

Post by Bill Bradshaw
this will at least allow you to print).

Thanks a lot.

[Micky]

This thread and installing this printer has been a real learning
experience for me, and its value goes far beyond this one model
printer and this one OS, Vista, (and maybe even beyond printers?). How
to not be stymied by the manufacturers lack of accomodations for
printers and a specific OS.

Thanks again for all the help I got.

comp.periphs.printers added

More below.

On Fri, 08 Jan 2016 18:09:49 -0600, in alt.windows7.general Paul in

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Did you check here for a work-around?
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardware-devices/4360-brother-mfc-6800-driver.html

The first time I replied to you, I'd read the thread too quickly, and
I said it hadn't worked for people, but when I had fewer other posts
to read, I read again, and one poster had a solution, and 3 other
people said it worked for them!! Two with the same printer I've got
and one with another model.

The guy, Videoguymike, gave detailed instructions. The upshot of
his instructions were, instead of using the big package, with software
and drivers, which I had tried a little while earlier, to instead use
only the driver package, which Brother is good enough to list
separately

Going back a step, when I tried the large setup package, that Brother
urges you to use, none of the Setup.exe files would work, even in
compatibility mode. They got farther in compat mode than without it,
but not very far.

(BTW, what happens when you set Setup.exe to use compat mode, but it
calls or installs a bunch of .ex_ programs. Will everything be in
compatibilty mode during the install? Maybe so, but what about
later, during printing?? It seems unlikely. OTOH, there are a bunch
of ex_ files in what I did next (but because of a temporary hardware
problem, I may not yet have tried to execute them.)

So, instead of the big driver and software package, the "Full Driver &
Software Package" he used the "Add Printer Wizard Driver; This
download only includes the printer drivers and is for users who are
familiar with installation using the Add Printer Wizard in Windows®."

And I've certainly used the windows printer install "wizard" many
times.

Here are his instructions. I should add that when you download the
"Add Printer Wizard Driver", the next page displayed gives a shortened
version of his instructions. I don't know whether to praise Brother
for all this or to criticize them for not putting this file under the
Vista (and maybe the 7, 8, and 10) install instructions. I'm pretty
sure using these instructions will work better, be more tailored to
this particular printer, in 7, 8, and 10 than relying on what they
have built in.

Also, I'm not sure where "Printer Driver & Scanner Driver for Local
Connection" fits in. That's the third choice for downloading. I dl'd
it just now and I'll look at its contents: It's smaller and has only
1/4 of the number of files. I thought it would be bigger. Brother
also didnt' provide the kind of instructions they did for the "Add
Printer Wizard Driver"

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardware-devices/4360-brother-mfc-6800-driver.html

Post by Paul in Houston TX
This is what I did.
1:Shut off or disconnect the printer.
2:As above mentioned delete your Brother printer and remove all current drivers. REMEMBER to Reboot before continuing. Windows hates when you don't REBOOT a million times.

I didn't do these two steps, maybe not needed because I'd not
succeeded in installing anything earlier. (The printer wasn't
connected, as Dominique said it should not be.)

Post by Paul in Houston TX
3ownload from Brother .......

He corrected this later, to make clear he meant
Add Printer Wizard Driver Version A 5.73MB 07/01/2005
See details from .inf file at the bottom****

Post by Paul in Houston TX
4:Save the download in a new folder and run to decompress it inside this folder.
5:Go to add printers and Add a local printer

Brother says this too, but when you don't have instructions, you might
be discouraged because "Add a local printer" says "Use this option
only if you don't have a USB printer. (Windows automatically installs
usb printers when you plug them in.)" Despite this, this is the
choice to use.

He leaves out, Choose "Create a new Port"**. and then iirc choose
"Local Port". **But of the two choices, only that one allows his

Post by Paul in Houston TX
6: I am using a USB connection so I chose the USB001 (Virtual printer port for USB)

I would have never come up with USB001. But when I googled it, I
found "USB001 is the default printer port for USB printers and is the
first port Windows selects when connecting a printer via the operating
system's Devices and Printers ..." Who knew?

Post by Paul in Houston TX
7: Choose Have disk

I hate to spoil the end of hte story, but what's REALLY interesting
here is that if you DON'T choose Have Disk, and you go through tthe
list of pre-provided printer drivers, starting with Brother, one of
the choices is DCP-1000. A few lines later in Videoguymike's
instructions, he points out that DCP1000's drivers are what is being
used for the MFC6800. So if I'd known that earlier, I probably could
have just chosen DCP1000 from the list!!!! I can't find who in
this thread suggested if they only specified groups of similar
printers, that would help.

Post by Paul in Houston TX
8:Browse to the folder you saved the files in and open the US-ENG folder

These instructions are from 2008. Apparently they used both US and UK
english drivers. Wow. But now there is only one set.

Post by Paul in Houston TX
9:You want to choose the file called "br64add.inf" then click Open

This wasn't there either. It may say Open but in this case it really
means Select for opening in the next step.

Post by Paul in Houston TX
10:Ignore the windows This Driver is not digitally signed. Windows always seems to ignore us.

I don't think I got this message.

Post by Paul in Houston TX
11:Hit Next
12: Type a printer name showed me a "Brother DCP-1000" As far as I can tell the printer driver is a generic for a number of models. I just changed the name to Brother MFC-6800

See what I mean. Now that it's installed, it still shows DCP-1000
some places.

Post by Paul in Houston TX
13: Hit Next, Next and then cancel the Test page.
14:Reconnect your printer and power up
Now here I had fun figuring this out. Windows is going to find new hardware and install the Brother Printer. Let it do its thing.

My back was turned for whatever he's talking about. There was a
bubble above the systray.

Post by Paul in Houston TX
Then in Control Panel / Printers just delete this new printer and set the one you installed manually. Send a test page and mine began working like it was supposed to.

I dont' think I have anything to delete. Plus there is no FAX entry
for this new all-in-one, but until I get the hardware problems solved,
that doesnt' matter.

I can print any of the built-in Reports, like the Help List and User
Settings, and the pages look pretty good. The first one had two spots
the size of the inside of an e, but the second page had only one
smaller spot. Plus a little horizontal streaking, that can probably
be cleaned up.

But after a bunch of messages to open up the cover, etc. I'm still
getting "machine error af" which seems to be about the scanner PCB not
being plugged in. Of course I want the scanner, but it's not needed
to print, so that's annoying. But I'll read what google has and work
on it.

Oh, it's not a color device after all. I finally noticed that there
was only one toner cartridge and no reference to color. I was so
happy to get a laser all-in-one that I built its quality up one notch,
to color.

And the woman I got it from didnt use it for business. I must have
thought that after I found a business form on the glass for copying.
And I called her a friend but she was really a stranger on Freecycle,
and I found her posting this morning in my old email and it say *she*
got it free from another recycler and didn't know if it worked or
needed toner, but she hadn't used it and wanted to get rid of it and
another one (which was too heavy.) She never said it was color
either.

I can't tell yet if the 16' USB cable is too long or not.

Still, this has all been a wonderful experience for me, and I hope
it's been worthwhile for you all.


****He lists details:
; Brother MFC Setup File
; Copyright (c) 2005 Brother Industries,LTD.
; FileName : br64add.inf

I don't have this file

; Function : Printer
; I/F : LPT/USB
; OS ; Windows XP for x64
; Model : DCP-1000
; MFC-9160
; MFC-6800
; MFC-6800J
; MFC-9180
; MFC-4800
; MFC-9030
; MFC-9070
; MFC-4800J
; FAX-2850
; FAX-2900
; FAX-3800

He got this list from the .inf file that I don't have. But the .inf
file I have shows 20 models, even more than the 12 above, some added
in the last 7 years (and some omitted). How about that!!!!
"Brother MFC4800
"Brother MFC6800
"Brother MFC8500
"Brother MFC9700
"Brother MFC9800
"Brother DCP1000
"Brother DCP1400
"Brother FAX2900
"Brother FAX3800
"Brother FAX4100
"Brother FAX4750e
"Brother FAX5750e
"Brother MFC9070
"Brother MFC9030
"Brother MFC9180
"Brother MFC9160
"Brother MFC9660
"Brother MFC9880
"Brother MFC9760
"Brother FAX2850

[Micky]

Post by Micky
I hate to spoil the end of hte story, but what's REALLY interesting
here is that if you DON'T choose Have Disk, and you go through tthe
list of pre-provided printer drivers, starting with Brother, one of
the choices is DCP-1000. A few lines later in Videoguymike's
instructions, he points out that DCP1000's drivers are what is being
used for the MFC6800. So if I'd known that earlier, I probably could
have just chosen DCP1000 from the list!!!! I can't find who in
this thread suggested if they only specified groups of similar
printers, that would help.

Vanguard suggested that.

Downloading drivers almost at random and lookng for a list in their
.inf files might work, especially for Brother, but seems like extra
work.

[Micky]

Post by Micky
I dont' think I have anything to delete. Plus there is no FAX entry
for this new all-in-one, but until I get the hardware problems solved,
that doesnt' matter.

I don't remember seeing two entries before, but now there is Brother
MFC-6800 and Brother MFC-6800 USB. When things are working, I'll
figure out which is better.

Post by Micky
I can print any of the built-in Reports, like the Help List and User
Settings, and the pages look pretty good. The first one had two spots
the size of the inside of an e, but the second page had only one
smaller spot. Plus a little horizontal streaking, that can probably
be cleaned up.
But after a bunch of messages to open up the cover, etc. I'm still
getting "machine error af" which seems to be about the scanner PCB not

Brother says, It's broken, send it in.
Anonymous says, It's the scanner, you can't fix it.
Another page says It's the scanner, reconnect it. Plus some
instructions
So I tried to find the scanner pcb and instead I found some
cracker crumbs I'd never noticed before, even though I'd had the paper
feeder open many times. They must have come from a hidden cache. I
brushed them away and the error message has disappeared!!
Then the paper feeder wouldn't feed, and I found a quarter square
inch of what seems like newsprint in the feeder.
Now the feeder feeds but I still haven't gotten Print from
Computer to do anything (cable too long?). I tried copy and the copy
is all black. Back to the manual!

"Wipe the electrical terminals referred to on page 20-18." I'll do
it but I don't think that could be it, because the internal reports
printed fine. It must be in the scanner, esp. since I used to get the
scanner error.


I should get a shorter cable and try printing from the computer again.

Post by Micky
Still, this has all been a wonderful experience for me, and I hope
it's been worthwhile for you all.

[Zaidy036]

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

Look here:
http://www.driverscape.com/download/brother-mfc-6800

[Zaidy036]

Post by Zaidy036

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

http://www.driverscape.com/download/brother-mfc-6800

and here:
http://xpdrivers.com/printer/brother/mfc/6800/_5_3426.cfm
http://www.driverslib.com/Multifunctional/Brother/MFC-6800.html
http://www.solvusoft.com/en/update/drivers/all-in-one-printer/brother/mfc-6800/sub-models/

[Micky]

Post by Zaidy036

Post by Zaidy036

Post by Micky
This is probably a hypothetical question, because the expected order
of events in my computer setup probably won't give me an incentive to
do this. But it's a question nevertheless. Please don't argue with
me that even though I can do it, it's a waste of my time. As I said,
it's a hypothetical question.
I'm runing Vista, which is a lot like Win7.
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.
I figured the Win7 drivers might work, but the Brother page says 7 has
the drivers in it. "The built-in driver is already included with
Windows® Operating System or is available through Windows® update."
Does that mean I could install 7 on another computer, install the
printer, go to Device Manager (or maybe it's the Printer properties)
and display a list of the installed drivers, copy all of them to the
appropriate directories in Vista, and then install the printer in
Vista?
To make this non-hypothetical: I have a win7 installation disk, which
I presume has a lot of .cab files etc. Any chance I can somewhere
get a list of the drivers needed, or maybe I can tell them by the use
of "br" in their names, copy them all to Vista, and install the
printer that way?

http://www.driverscape.com/download/brother-mfc-6800

Thanks for all your effort

This one wants to install DriverToolkitInstaller.exe. I don't trust
it or really any of the driver sites that claim to have a driver that
the manufacturer doesn't have. It would be different if the
manufacturer had no drivers from that period, but Brother has drivers
for this printer from XP all the way back to win95!!!**. It has winME
too!

**I didn't realize the printer was so old, but maybe it's not. The
copyright on the manual is 2001 and on the quickstartguide is 2002.
It's a color laser scanner/printer/copier/fax in beautiful condition,
and she gave me a new/reman black toner cartridge.

Before I posted back to you I looked for reviews of this site and
didnt' find any.

Post by Zaidy036
http://xpdrivers.com/printer/brother/mfc/6800/_5_3426.cfm

Norton has 4 good reviews for this site, but they're all from 4 years
ago. Scamadvisor and McAfee think it's safe. Google says
"Current status: Not dangerous Safe Browsing has not recently seen
malicious content on xpdrivers.com." Easycounter says user reviews
are 15% positive and 85% negative, but when I click for details it
just gives me the mcaffe page that says it's safe. ?? Ah, the user
reviews only require scrolling down, to see the first 3 and then
there's a link to https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/xpdrivers.com
where it says you have to pay money and/or it doesn't really work. For
example "Jamie_C 30-04-2013 No drivers; just links through to a
'driver updater' program which costs you to continue. HOW is this site
still rated 'good' when almost all reviews are bad? "". Once the
software ran it required I pay $29.95 for further action.""Driver
Detective scam""After my system was scanned it reported many drivers
as being outdated when they were not. To correct the false reports you
have to register which involves paying for their software. "

Post by Zaidy036
http://www.driverslib.com/Multifunctional/Brother/MFC-6800.html

This one wants to install DriverUpdatePro.exe. Same objection.
Although McAfee and less so AVG don't seem to have an objection to it.

Post by Zaidy036
http://www.solvusoft.com/en/update/drivers/all-in-one-printer/brother/mfc-6800/sub-models/

This one wants to install SetupDriverDoc_2016.exe. Same objection.
He calls it the Brother MFC-6800 Driver Utility, and in the previous
paragraph he calls it the Brother Driver Update Tool, but the name of
the file is SetupDriverDoc_2016.exe. Seems suspicious to me. Has
anyone ever had success with sites like this?

---
While looking for reviews of the sites above, I came across
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/driversites/tp/driver_download_websites.htm
which rates 10 such sites, none of the ones above.

One that it had good things to say about was
http://www.driverguide.com/ it had lots of hits for my printer but
all of them except 2 were for XP or earlier. WRT Vista it had 2 hits,
one of which said "This tool will expand the maximum scanning
resolution capability and allow you to scan legal size documents.""
and that's the one file that the Brother site offers for Vista. I
think the other hit is the same thing. So this is, I think, what a
reliable page does, only offers what's good, doesn't bluff that it has
more than it has, more than there is.

[Micky]

Post by Micky
**I didn't realize the printer was so old, but maybe it's not. The
copyright on the manual is 2001 and on the quickstartguide is 2002.

Maybe being a year later is why the QSGuide went into connecting by
USB when the manual only brought that up for Macs.

Post by Micky
It's a color laser scanner/printer/copier/fax in beautiful condition,
and she gave me a new/reman black toner cartridge.

[Patrick]

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Appears to have drivers for every OS here;
http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us

[Patrick]

Post by Patrick

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Appears to have drivers for every OS here;
http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us

Sorry, my mistake ! :)

[Patrick]

Post by Patrick

Post by Patrick

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Appears to have drivers for every OS here;
http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us

Sorry, my mistake ! :)

Perhaps dodgy but I did find this;
http://www.driverscape.com/download/brother-mfc-6800

[Joe Morris]

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Try this:

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=brother+MFC-6800

Sort the results by date; on my system most of the entries are dated 2003
and intended for Windows 2000, but there are three entries marked for Win7+
and four for Win8+. it's likely (but not guaranteed!) that these driver
will work with Vista.

The most recent entries are dated June 2009 and are listed as "Brother
driver update for Brother MFC-6800".

Joe

[Micky]

On Tue, 12 Jan 2016 19:12:21 -0500, "Joe Morris"

Post by Joe Morris

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=brother+MFC-6800

Okay, MS is so stuffy that Firefox won't work with this page.
Seriously, does MS have a good reason for this or are they just being
self-centered?

So I went to IE and I got a page back that says
"Thank you for visiting the Microsoft Update Catalog
To use this Web site's full functionality, you must be running
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later."

Except I'm runing IE9!!

But the second time I tried, the page loaded.

It also said "To upgrade to the latest version of the browser, go to
the Internet Explorer Downloads Website." But that said I was using
the latest version.
And it said, "If you prefer to use a different Web browser, you can
get updates from the Microsoft Download Center. " but that looked
nothing like the page you referred me too. It must be MS's way of
tormenting people who cross them.

Post by Joe Morris
Sort the results by date;

They already were!!

Post by Joe Morris
on my system most of the entries are dated 2003
and intended for Windows 2000, but there are three entries marked for Win7+
and four for Win8+. it's likely (but not guaranteed!) that these driver
will work with Vista.

I didn't have the ones listed for win8, probably because it knows I
have Vista, but otoh, I did have the ones from earlier.

Post by Joe Morris
The most recent entries are dated June 2009 and are listed as "Brother
driver update for Brother MFC-6800".

YES, YES, Yes!! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I had that and I
was so excited. 2009 is so recent, and it came from Brother, not just
that generic stuff that people have told me about.

So I dl'd and it was a .cab file, and I found a way to unzip it. .
(all this time in the back of my mind is, Why does MS have a driver
that Brother doesnt' have on its page?)

I forgot or never new how to install it. It has only one .exe file,
and when I ran that, it showed up in Task Manager/ Processes, but
afaict it was doing nothing. It showed no screen and used no cpu.

It had a bunch of dll and bin files, and a few icm files. What is an
icm file? It had two sys files, and one .cat file and one .inf file.
I knew the .inf file woud be legible so I legged it. This is what it
says.
";BRMFCWIA.INF -- Brother MFC WIA scanner Setup File
; Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brother industries,LTD. "

Alas, this is the file that improves scanning, allowing scanning legal
size paper, not just letter size. And it's the same file, the only
file, that's available on the Brother download site for Vista.

But thank you anyhow for your effort. It was a learning experience
and now I kow about
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx which I never
knew before. Aha, it says v7. Maybe that's why it didn't show me
win8 files. Nope. Changing the 7 to an 8 gives Not Found.

Post by Joe Morris
Joe

[The New Other Guy]

Post by Micky
Except I'm runing IE9!!

Not surprisingly, it fails on IE11 as well.

[Micky]

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 01:55:44 -0800, The New Other Guy

Post by The New Other Guy

Post by Micky
Except I'm runing IE9!!

Not surprisingly, it fails on IE11 as well.

Interesting.

But it worked the second time I did it.

I don't remember if I just reloaded the page with cntl-R or not.

[Charlie]

Post by Micky
What is an
icm file?

It's a file used for color correction, assuming you have software
that can use it. When part of a printer package, it mainly relates to
the color characteristics of the ink and paper.
The whole color correction/calibration/adjustment bit is quite involved.

[Micky]

Post by Charlie

Post by Micky
What is an
icm file?

It's a file used for color correction, assuming you have software
that can use it. When part of a printer package, it mainly relates to
the color characteristics of the ink and paper.
The whole color correction/calibration/adjustment bit is quite involved.

Very interesting. Thanks.

[Micky]

Post by Patrick

Post by Patrick

Post by Patrick

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Appears to have drivers for every OS here;
http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us

Sorry, my mistake ! :)

I appreciate the effort.

Post by Patrick
Perhaps dodgy but I did find this;
http://www.driverscape.com/download/brother-mfc-6800

Here too.

If you read the longest post in this thread, you'll see how things
turned out so far. Pretty good. Now my problems seem to be
mechanical.

Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 11:06:41 -0500
Lines: 237
Message-ID: <***@4ax.com>

[Micky]

Post by Micky

Post by Patrick

Post by Patrick

Post by Patrick

Post by Micky
A friend gave me a laser color printer, a Brother MFC-6800 fwiw. The
Brother site has drivers for XP, but no drivers for Vista. I've
finally bumped into the big complaint I heard so much about, a
shortage of drivers for Vista.

Appears to have drivers for every OS here;
http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc6800_us

Sorry, my mistake ! :)

I appreciate the effort.

Post by Patrick
Perhaps dodgy but I did find this;
http://www.driverscape.com/download/brother-mfc-6800

Here too.
If you read the longest post in this thread, you'll see how things
turned out so far. Pretty good. Now my problems seem to be
mechanical.

I spoke too soon.

Printing to a file with one of the two "printers" that got installed
seems to give a file of zero length, and with the other one, it's not
nearly as long as the image should be. I'll get back to you all.

Post by Micky
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 11:06:41 -0500
Lines: 237