"Printer driver was not installed" when trying to install HP LaserJet 4050 TN drivers on Windows 10

I recently upgraded a family member's laptop from Windows Vista to Windows 10 and am trying to install a driver for an HP LaserJet 4050 TN printer. I created a TCP/IP port and used the Windows Update option to get a list of drivers, but Windows gives a "Printer driver was not installed" error. I tried again several times but got the same result.

I installed a generic driver instead, but that caused the printer to show a "79.8109 printer error." The issue persisted even after I removed the device. I had to do a system restore to fix the problem.

This did not happen on our other Windows 10 machines. I'm aware this printer is a very old model. Has Microsoft discontinued the drivers?

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2 Answers

Well, I got the printer to work after downloading the universal print driver from the HP website. It turns out I installed the wrong driver earlier.

As Danny discovered already, the HP Universal Print Driver (available on the HP website) is the way to go. However, there are a few caveats, as the LaserJet 4050 is limited to PCL 5 or PostScript Level 2.

By default, the PCL driver sends PCL 6, which the 4050 can’t handle. Some print jobs may print OK but others will fail. I haven’t figured out if there is a way to limit the driver to PCL 5.

The PS driver defaults to Level 2 and has worked for me. Caveat here: some applications may override this setting and send PS Level 3 to the printer (notably Acrobat Reader). You need to throttle that in the print options.

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