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?

On 01/08/2016 04:03 AM, Micky wrote:
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.

On 1/8/2016 5:03 AM, Micky wrote:
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.

On Fri, 8 Jan 2016 05:38:09 -0500, Charlie wrote:

On 1/8/2016 5:03 AM, Micky wrote:
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.)

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.

From: "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.


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

| 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.

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

| 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. ???

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 wrote on 2016/01/08:

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/faqen... 00002643_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/faqen... 00002644_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?

You might find something useful he

http://support.brother.com/g/b/oslis...rod=mfc6800_us
--
Bill

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

"Micky" wrote in message
...
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.

On 1/8/2016 11:00 AM, Micky wrote:
On Fri, 8 Jan 2016 09:22:04 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote:

| 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. ???

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.

--
This is not an email so the anti-virus software hasn't wasted your time
telling you that this note was checked for viruses, because this is
USENET for crying out loud