HP Smart app mysteriously appears on non-HP Windows PCs | Microsoft is investigating::undefined
‘Microsoft, the company that allowed the app to bypass its gatekeepers, was surprised by getting caught in the act and now promises to come up with an excuse that shifts the blame away from them as soon as possible.’
Hp and Microsoft are two sides of the same shit coin.
Do a lot of tech support for older retired professionals. I believe 90% of hps business are these people. They used their products when they were working and believe they are still a reliable product.
Between the ink subscriptions and the absolute nightmare of that fucking app have had 7 hp printers stop working since January exclusively because of software.
There was an article on here a while ago showing the sticker that hp put over the usb port in an effort to get you to register the product and use their app. It’s literally a sticker covering the port direct from the manufacturer. Saw one in real life last month and was still dumbfounded.
Everyone wants you on the subscription tit it seems.
And they can’t even dig that tit from their shirt properly. They can deliver managed enterprise printers quickly, but getting necessary onboarding info requires kidnapping a product manager and removing few fingers…
They used their products when they were working and believe they are still a reliable product.
There are almost no products that stay good forever. They make great products for a while, develop a stellar reputation, get bought out by a greedy corporation, then the new owner exploits that reputation for short term profits.
My partner bought an HP printer/scanner once. I was setting it up and the thing required me to accept data sharing with Google and Facebook. Sorry, no you may not share the things I print with Google and Facebook. What the fuck. This is a printer I paid for, not a god damn website. I returned it the next day and bought the dumbest laser jet printer I could find. It’s been 3 years and hasn’t run out of ink yet. No need for a damn ink subscription either.
Was HP ever a reliable product?
I was and still more or less am a fan of HP for their business-class products. I’ve strayed away for my current gen of personal machines only because of budget, but their tablet PCs were absolutely awesome with Linux.
I got into an accident with my bicycle, the tablet chipped a corner of its magnesium case, but the screen and internals were a-ok even though I broke my shoulder.
Just bought a new Lenovo PC. And sure enough, there’s the HP Smart app.
Anddd this is why I run LTSC on my gaming desktop, with automatic driver installation OFF 👍 and Linux on my laptop + everything else that doesn’t have peripherals that only work fully under Windows.
I went to my Makerspace a few days ago to print something (both of mine are dead) and they only have HP printers… which weren’t working. The HP Smart app would freeze on the logo. Eventually got it sorted, but I’ve never had that issue when at my parents, or at my partners parents who both have Brother laser printers
How does one even get a copy of LTSC to install?
If you want to be legal because MS is stupid and doesn’t sell LTSC to consumers, buy Windows Server Essentials for $300.
You get even longer support than the current LTSC ( because 10 is already nearing the end of support.) and absolutely none of the garbage pre installed. Patches are real patches and not an excuse to add advertising disguised as features.
There’s this song from Lazy Town. It goes something like “yarr harr fiddle dee dee”.
Either that or got a key off an admin (school, work, etc.)
There’s also a chance it was bought through less legitimate means.
In any case, it is harder to obtain than even the regular Enterprise version, but not impossible.
E: oh I completely misread the question. To obtain it, I believe it can be obtained via UUPdump or something like that directly off of MS.
I’m using LTSC too and found the app on there. I don’t have a single printer in my house. So, this is happening to a lot of people in a lot of circumstances for absolutely no reason.
Same! 99% of the problems people have with Windows goes away when you use the no-bullshit enterprise edition and disable automatic updates.
Also +1 for Brother
Just don’t buy the loss printers and buy proper office/business class printers.
Not that hard.
Our main printer at work is HP and has no HP apps (besides the driver) associated on our workstations to print on the bloddy thing.Surprised they don’t force upon business some shitty cloud service to use their enterprise printers
We wouldn’t buy them if so. There are plenty of other enterprise printer suppliers (using Konica currently but not loving it) that we IT departments would contract instead. I probably won’t look at Konica for my next contract but it definitely won’t be HP.
Ah but if Samsung adds the notch then everyone gets the notch.
Just saying if there’s money to be made they’ll stop at nothing
It’s an older model so my information may be outdated in regards to current models.
We sell brother to our customers but no printer is every your friend anyway.
“How the Dickens did that get in there?” said an unnamed spokesperson for Microsoft
