Epson Rant

[Rand47]

Ha ha! Actually the one or the other of the P800 drivers must have those profiles.

Mark,

If you ever hear anything about which it might be, I'd be glad to buy you a nice bottle of wine for your trouble.  Jeff calls me "wine boy," so I know how to pick 'em.  LOL

Rand

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Rand, There is a drivers and utilities combo package for the P800/Windows 10. Did you download it and try to unpack it? I can't on a Mac.

And thanks for the kind thoughts on the wine :-).

[Rand47]

Hi Rand, There is a drivers and utilities combo package for the P800/Windows 10. Did you download it and try to unpack it? I can't on a Mac.

And thanks for the kind thoughts on the wine :-).

Mark,

Well, if we ever get to meet, I'm buying you a nice bottle of wine and dinner.  Here's what is strange.  In the utilities tab of my P800 driver it shows the driver version as 6.72.  When I have it check for updates there are none.  When I went to the Epson web site it shows the latest driver as 6.72.  I looked at the "bundle" download (driver and other utilities) and it shows the driver version 6.72.  When I downloaded the bundle to my computer in the same folder where I had done the initial installation of the printer, it told me that there was already a file by that same name and did I want to overwrite it?  Out of pure curiosity at this point, I said yes.  Then I reinstalled the driver package and now there are Legacy media types in the driver.

So, the driver "has indeed" been updated, but has the same version number (the utilities tab still shows 6.72 as the version after the reinstall).  It is a mystery to me that no one I talked to at Epson knew this.  Frankly it is discouraging on one level re my confidence in Epson and their concern/caring for their installed customer base.  On the other hand my 'issue" and "rant-impetus" turns out to be silly (except there's no way on earth I could have known).

So, once again, Mark, my gratitude for your graciousness and tenacity in trying to be helpful.


Rand

For others of you out there who are Windows folk, who already have driver version 6.72 showing, and who don't see Legacy media types available in the driver - just download the current driver/utilities bundle (even though it appears to be the same one you originally used - with the same driver version number and file name) and you'll be all set.

[Mark D Segal]

You are welcome Rand.

Strange they would allow two versions to have the same identification number. Anyhow, if a redownload fixes the problem, so be it. Mission accomplished.

[FabienP]

You are welcome Rand.

Strange they would allow two versions to have the same identification number. Anyhow, if a redownload fixes the problem, so be it. Mission accomplished.

Mark,

I would not rule this out. Looking at the full revision number which can be seen in the properties of the Windows driver, I see the following information:

Epson Color Printing System
Version 6.72_eu1.0_revD
Copyright (C) SEIKO EPSON CORP. 2014
All Rights Reserved.

So apparently there is a version that is specific to Europe and which is currently at Revision D. I assume that Rand was using an earlier revision of Version 6.72.

Now if only Epson would tell us about those revisions, it would be nice. A Changelog would be even better, but since they do not provide those for their firmware upgrades, I am not really holding my breath.

And since we are ranting here, I would like to ask Epson to enhance their import/export module for parameters of the print driver. I see two problems with the current implementation:

• A configuration export made with Version 6.71 cannot be reimported in Version 6.72. It is too bad I only noticed this after a complete system reinstall and when I no longer had access to a system running with Version 6.71...
• The configuration file is in a binary format and cannot be read by human beings. An XML file would at least allow one to read values for parameters and reapply those by hand.

Cheers,

Fabien

[Rand47]

Now if only Epson would tell us about those revisions, it would be nice. A Changelog would be even better, but since they do not provide those for their firmware upgrades, I am not really holding my breath.

I'd even settle for Epson telling/teaching their own updater application about "revisions" to the same numbered driver version!    At least, now, with Mark's help, I know not to trust the logic of thinking I have the latest driver just because mine has the same number and the updater says there isn't anything newer. 

Rand