OK, I read the Computer Question sticky, and didn’t see this.
I’m helping a friend with her business computer. For various reasons, she needs to get her newly purchased HP Deskjet 9650 printer working with her old Pentium Pro running NT 4.0 with 128 Mb of RAM. The printer’s specs said it would work with that CPU and OS. We did have to install Service Pack 6a - no problem.
The driver installation software keeps crapping out with a message that we’ve encountered Error 1723, and a DLL needed by the install routine did not execute. To our chagrin, the message does not specify which DLL is MIA. My poking around the 'net today has led me to believe the issue is related to the fact that her Internet Explorer is version 2.0.
So, upgrade, right? The current MSIE is 6.0 with a Service Pack, and it’ll work with NT 4.0 SP6a. Unfortunately, it appears that you can’t download it on another computer and move it to the subject computer on a CD. The subject computer must be online.
This one’s never been online and is modem-less. The current plan is to go out tomorrow morning and buy the cheapest NT compatible modem we can find and, through her currently unused dial-up account, upgrade Internet Explorer. Then, the hope is, the printer driver will install, and I can quit worryin’ her husband by hanging out with her at her office until all hours of the night.
The questions, then, are: 1.) am I right that the problem is with her ancient version of IE (I did a reinstall of NT along with SP 6a today) and 2.) if that’s not the issue, does anybody have any insights to offer about Error 1723?
Are you tying to use a USB cable? Does this printer have an old school printer cable? If the answer to both of these happens to be yes, try using the non-USB cable before you bother with a modem.
I also don’t see the need of having IE installed just to use a printer. If that is the case you might want to rethink the printer.
I haven’t looked at NT 4 in a while but printer drivers are fairly generic for basic stuff. If you could get ahold of another HP 9000 series driver, it would probably work too. I don’t remember if NT has drivers already loaded as part of installation but you can try that if it does. If it does not, you could load another 9000 series driver on a disk or CD and try that. Try that before you do anything drastic.
The printer is both USB and parallel cable capable, but the computer can only take the parallel. I don’t think that’s the issue.
I did look for more generic drivers, and I didn’t find one that claimed a fit. Part of the problem with generic drivers, if I could find one, is that this is a large format printer, so if I could find something that let me manage to spit out an 8.5" x 11" print, I would not really have the problem solved.
You used to be able to download an “administrator” package of everything on Microsoft’s site that would be the actual downloads. (For network updating, burning to CD, etc). Couldn’t find it today though. :dubious:
This site offers alternate instructions on downloading. (Though I haven’t tried them myself).
Your error message is generally indicative that the driver/setup module was improperly executed. The HP USB/Parallel combos units are (or were) really finicky with older OS’s that the EXACT “load -plug in - regognize - continue” sequence be followed that is outlined on the quick start sheet depending on which interface you intend to use. I’d un-install the setup package and start over. Make sure your install sequence is specifically for the parallel mode.
As a side note I’m curious as to why you need a modem installed to install IE. I’ve installed many windows OS’s (not NT though) and IE without an onboard modem or net connection of any kind being in place. I’ve never had IE demand a modem to be in place before it would install.
Wish I’d seen that before I headed out this morning.
There really wasn’t time to order anything as she needed to have it working by tomorrow morning.
You can install IE on a machine just fine without a modem, if you have it on CD. If not, you’ve got to get the subject machine online as you don’t really download the software and then install. You install it right from MS’ site. So going there with an XP machine wouldn’t get me what I needed for an NT machine. I didn’t find a site where I could get what I needed with another machine.
Thanks for the input. What I wound up doing was installing the printer on an XP Pro laptop and networking the NT machine with the laptop. All is well.
Life is funny. Here I was debating whether or not to spend $15 on a cheap modem and late in the day I discover that she just happens to have an unused wireless router and three CAT-5 cables lying around in the back room.
For short-term posterity: If you start the IE setup on an online machine and choose the “custom install” option, there is a button to allow downloading the entire IE package and saving it to disk. You can select any or all versions of Windows, not just what’s running on the download machine, and can burn the files to CD and install elsewhere.