Thread: epson stylus photo 1280 fails to install

Hello and welcome to the forum.
I have this sneaky hunch that we may be seeing more and more of this as Windows 8 matures and becomes more widely used. Especially as it pertains to older peripherals like printers, scanners and AIOs.
The fault is not with Microsoft or with Windows 8, but with the OEM in this case Epson, not updating their drivers. As in this case Epson has marked this as a "Discontinued Product" http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?oid=28907797 so I would suspect that your options going forward with this device on a new OS might be limited.
Did the device work formerly in Vista or Windows 7 (32 and or 64bit version)?
If so you may find some success if you try setting the properties of the installer (usually Setup.exe) to use Windows 7 or Windows Vista compatibility mode, I would also check the box that says "Run as Administrator" and see if that helps. (Right click it, choose properties, select the Compatibility Tab and check the appropriate boxes).
Regards
Randy

Randy,

Thank you for the reply. Upon the original attempt to install the printer Windows Update downloaded the driver but the installation failed. I then downloaded the only driver on the Epson site which was for Vista. I tried installing with the Vsta and WIn-7 mode to no avail. Windows 7 did install the driver when I first installed that OS when it was released.
I supposed you are right. I will just wait for an update from Epson or MS.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Trouble

I have this sneaky hunch that we may be seeing more and more of this as Windows 8 matures and becomes more widely used. Especially as it pertains to older peripherals like printers, scanners and AIOs.

Hi Randy,
I have the same issue with an epson stylus 220... frustrating because Epson had beta versions of Win8 to work with for a year! Really sloppy IMO.
Their site says the win7 driver will work, but it does not, my printer is using some generic driver and is printing at about a page per two minutes, and is not great quality either!
aaauggghh!!!

Mark.

Thanks Mark for the follow up.
There are a couple resources that folks can use when checking device compatibility both work best when used with IE rather than alternate browser
The new compatibility center Windows 8 compatibility for Epson Stylus Photo 1280 Inkjet Printer model C11C393121 from Epson which seems to reflect that the 1280 should work with windows 8 but I could find no reference for the stylus 220.
And
The Update Catalog Microsoft Update Catalog where there is an indication that some drivers for Epson Stylus products from 2006 would be compatible with Windows 8. Again no mention of the 220.

Originally Posted by Trouble

There are a couple resources that folks can use when checking device compatibility both work best when used with IE rather than alternate browser
The new compatibility center

Hi there, thanks for the input...
The installation of the win7 drivers seemed to have done some good... even though during the install, the printer could not be found, for the first time while printing, the epson interface came up when spooling... but then it froze. I went to devices and saw there were two printers now of the same name. I rebooted, still two. So I did a test with the one, it froze. so I uninstalled that printer. I tried the other and it worked! I am not sure yet if it is back to normal, but at least I can print a page at a normal speed, which is a relief.

I hope that somehow helps someone.

Cheers all,
Mark.