Do I need a Firmware Upgrade ?

I have mentioned before just how sneaky Canon are getting with their print driver upgrades on their new printers.

I always taught that if I don’t upgrade the firmware myself then it can’t be done, well in a way it can’t but Canon sure have found a way to circumvent that little problem with the use of their print drivers.

It’s hard to explain just exactly what they do and how they do it but any new printer driver that you install has the ability of searching/scanning out any or every Canon printer on your system and making/altering them in little ways.

As to why this is done I have no idea but some of my printers have had slight changes done to them over the years, and I’ve never used or had any upgrades, I have always avoided them.

I have changed the drivers over to 64 bit some five or six years ago when I upgraded my computer system but got all of the print drivers from Microsoft and not from the official Canon website. (Correct Colour Adjustment back then)

Some of the changes are small like, minimum/maximum paper sizes, left/right print margins, print from last page, plus Duplex and Collate issues and Print Borders on certain papers, but the biggest bother to me now are the colour changes.

I don’t use colour profiles as most of you know but I do calibrate each similar printer to print the same using exactly the same inks with Colour Adjustment but this has gotten a little harder since my computer upgrade.

I lost all of these print setting when I reloaded the O/S but this time it is much harder to get the printers to sing from the same hymn sheet as they did before, from what I can see there are no changes in my system, except ! !

I have added a couple more printers to my stockpile since, so have they now got any influence over the other drivers ? Something similar happen when I added two printers to my print arsenal about 6 years ago and my minimum print margins went out the window.

I now get exactly the same results when using another computer with different drivers so the driver is not the cause, the changes are saved in the EPROM chip which have been altered from another source.

I reckon that adding a new print driver to your system has the ability to affect all your existing printers that you have already, who needs a firmware upgrade when you got print drivers with these capabilities, the average print driver size now is about 130 Megabyte.

Getting a brand new shiny toy to play with may cause more problems than you think !

This sounds a bit ominous! I want to understand better so will ask some questions.

The Hat said:

I lost all of these print setting when I reloaded the O/S

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What does this mean? "Reloaded" how? Repair, clean install, upgrade, etc?

The Hat said:

the changes are saved in the EPROM chip which have been altered from another source.

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EEPROM writes are from firmware changes, not printer driver changes AFAIK. What do you mean by "from another source"?

Stealth changes to EEPROM as you infer are a very bad idea for Canon as the risk of major malfunction during an EEPROM erase and write is significant if anything interferes with the operation. This is why there are warnings before initiating a firmware upgrade, such as do not interrupt the process like with turning off the power or doing anything else till accomplished. The complaints from customers would be heard around the world, including on this forum I would think.

The Hat said:

I reckon that adding a new print driver to your system has the ability to affect all your existing printers

Click to expand...

I suppose this could happen depending on the printers you are using. Why should Canon reinvent the wheel for every function for every printer. There is bound to be re-use of certain functions with compatible printers. And with a printer driver of 130 MB size, it is certainly possible it can "freshen up" other printer drivers at the same time, though I certainly would want to be made aware of this function before running the update.

Have you examined your hard drive to see how many printer drivers files you have? I'm not talking about the number listed by Windows in Devices and Printers in Windows 8.x (the OS you are currently running?). It could be that the same printer driver files are generally used, with some differences here and there, and this could be the cause of changes to all or some printers you have noticed. Nothing nefarious, just Canon doing things "efficiently".

I wonder if you uninstalled the printer and then reinstalled it whether the altered functions return to previous state. Maybe using the "old" print driver for that printer could get things back to desired function. I would think old drivers are available on the internet somewhere. We used to kick it old school on Canon's FTP site: http://www.mmnt.net/db/0/0/download.canon.jp/pub/driver. If you cannot find them elsewhere, maybe the drivers are still there for your older machines/OS'es.

stratman said:

The Hat said:

I reckon that adding a new print driver to your system has the ability to affect all your existing printers that you have already

Click to expand...

I suppose this could happen depending on the printers you are using. Why should Canon reinvent the wheel for every function for every printer. There is bound to be re-use of certain functions with compatible printers.

Click to expand...

I was a bit slow on the uptake when this was discussed previously but putting my coders hat on it's a no-brainer that Canon have what's usually called a "library" of common functions that they re-use in most if not all of their drivers. Having such a framework to bolt-on, attach or update for printer specific changes is a lot easier (and sensible) than trying to maintain all those printer drivers individually.

So, more likely the changes are down to changes in shared library files rather than a nefarious evil despotic scheme although it does beg the question as to why they thought it was a good idea to mess with colour profiling settings, etc...

Oh and don't forget that Operating System changes will also have been involved with security changes, and numerous other tweaks so again, it may be more than just one agency making tweaks.

A man of many questions !

The Hat said:

I lost all of these print setting when I reloaded the O/S

Click to expand...

stratman said:

What does this mean? "Reloaded" how? Repair, clean install, upgrade, etc?

Click to expand...

I put in a new Motherboard with all new attachment and hard drives but used the same O/S again, (Win 7), I’m going to wait till Win 10 comes out proper before upgrading to that.

The Hat said:

the changes are saved in the EPROM chip which have been altered from another source.

Click to expand...

stratman said:

EEPROM writes are from firmware changes, not printer driver changes AFAIK. What do you mean by "from another source"?

Click to expand...

Yes I know the EPROM is supposed to sacred but something has changed, if not the EPROM then what else is there ?

The Hat said:

I reckon that adding a new print driver to your system has the ability to affect all your existing printers

Click to expand...

stratman said:

Have you examined your hard drive to see how many printer drivers files you have? I'm not talking about the number listed by Windows in Devices and Printers in Windows 8.x (the OS you are currently running?). It could be that the same printer driver files are generally used, with some differences here and there, and this could be the cause of changes to all or some printers you have noticed. Nothing nefarious, just Canon doing things "efficiently".

Click to expand...

I have a separate driver installed for each printer and I am using exactly the same drivers as I did before the O/S reload.

I haven’t got a clue what’s causing the printers to behave like this, they do print perfectly but don’t necessarily print exactly the same as they use too, I get a notable variation in my colour prints from each printer now, before the O/S reload I didn’t.

My problem is that when I alter the Colour Adjustment and input the same setting that I used before I did the reload, the printers don’t respond to these new setting like before, I reckon the gremlins are interfering with each of my setups.

You got to remember that some of printers are designed to use BCI-6 carts, another’s are using CLI-8 cart and another is using CLl-521cart, but all with the same ink set !

stratman said:

Why should Canon reinvent the wheel for every function for every printer.

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Now that the $60,000 question that's I’ve been asking myself too ?

Some companies have a nasty habit of deleting the old installed versions when the new upgrade is intalled, whether you like it or not. The chances are you are unaware until you go looking for a specific feature. Keep the old computer running in parallel if it's not too late.

@The Hat

I see you are now expert with quotes -- excellent!!!! Works a treat!

stratman said:

@The Hat
I see you are now expert with quotes -- excellent!!!! Works a treat!

Click to expand...

Ops, you caught me out again @stratman.
I used the old way, otherwise I’d still be there try to post my response..

@The Hat
You remember I said I had to revert from Adobe Elements 13.1 to Adobe Elements 8, to be able to use the in program "No Colour Management".
I thought I had beaten the system, but oh no I hadn't, you have to use Elements 13 to be able to use Camera RAW 8.7.1 which is needed to liaise with the Canon 7D II camera. They've got me all wrapped up! Now I've got to use the NCM add on!

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/12/a-no-color-management-print-utility-for-photoshop.html

They are as good as Canon at making you do as they want.

ACPU isn't a solution far from it for windows users, perhaps it has some use on MAC where it at least positions the target correctly.