Microsoft: Recent Windows Updates Make USB Printers Print Random Text (bleepingcomputer.com)
- Reference: 0176704781
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/1828215/microsoft-recent-windows-updates-make-usb-printers-print-random-text
- Source link: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-usb-printers-print-random-text-after-recent-windows-updates/
> The known issue affects Windows 10 (version 22H2) and Windows 11 (versions 22H2 and 23H2), but according to an update to the Windows release health dashboard, the latest Windows 11 24H2 is not impacted.
>
> "After installing the January 2025 Windows preview update (KB5050092), released January 29, 2025, or later updates, you might observe issues with USB connected dual-mode printers that support both USB Print and IPP Over USB protocols," Redmond explains. "You might observe that the printer unexpectedly prints random text and data, including network commands and unusual characters."
>
> On affected systems, users will often see erroneously printed text that begins with the header "POST /ipp/print HTTP/1.1," followed by other IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) related issues headers. These printing issues are more frequent when the printer is turned on or reconnected after being disconnected. Affected users will observe the printer unexpectedly printing when the print spooler sends IPP protocol messages to the printer and the printer driver is installed on the Windows device.
[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-usb-printers-print-random-text-after-recent-windows-updates/
Microsoft continues to... (Score:4, Informative)
...add crap that nobody wants while breaking basic functionality
Re: Microsoft continues to... (Score:4, Insightful)
And only fucking with the older versions of windows that they're trying to force people off of.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I think I recognize the pattern. We already got the FUD about no security support, and here we are playing the goofy printer games..
Hmm, what's next on the list.. Are we at the point where an update causes boot-loops on some older systems?
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't seem like MS is adding anything, they are just not handling a 25 year old protocol properly. This implies that their regression testing is crap. Simple problem, and easy to fix with even a modicum of testing.
Re: (Score:2)
> they are just not handling a 25 year old protocol properly. This implies that ...
... they've fired (or otherwise don't have) all their older and more experienced (and more expensive) developers.
("Greening the workforce")
Re: Microsoft continues to... (Score:1)
The chief USB developer at MS died 20 years ago and nobody else has been able to pick up the pieces ever since - and no, Im not making this up.
Re: (Score:2)
What did they add? Or are you just on another general rant?
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. The only explanation is that they can still add crap, but that they find themselves unable to fix basic functionality. Likely due to a mountain of technological debt. At some point they have made so many bad technological decisions that trying to fix things only breaks more. That point lies in tghe past for Windows and Office.
Re: (Score:3)
MS tried to make MS Paint tablet-friendly a few years ago. It had piles of glitches (for mouse users) for a couple of years.
They eventually cleaned up most, but if you have Paint open and your system is auto-rebooted due to a crash or forced corporate update, then using the arrow keys causes the mouse cursor to move in random apps. They've yet to fix that. It's like tuning* a car radio makes the windshield wipers come on.
* Station hopping, for you younglings.
You sure this is Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
> "You might observe that the printer unexpectedly prints random text and data, including network commands and unusual characters."
We're sure this is Microsoft, and not HP trying to sell more ink?
Re: (Score:2)
the printer just prints junk when NON HP ink is installed.
Microsoft Has Gone Downhill (Score:5, Insightful)
Things in the OS that should just work, like say their start menu and search bar, are buggy, glitchy, sometimes the menus don't appear or you can't search. It's literally the primary interface with the entire OS and it boggles my mind how no one at Microsoft is noticing this.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, that damn search bar.
MS: don't use programs and find the program, just search it!
Me: Nah.
MS: cmon, it's easier! you don't have to remember file locations or program locations.
Me: OK, I'll try it. Hey, this works.
MS: (search bar no longer functions)
Me: where the hell is that program located again?
Re: (Score:2)
My take is MS knows, but nobody at MS knows how to fix it without breaking more things. A classical effect when you heap technological debt on technological debt: At some point you cannot fix problems anymore, you can just throw away the whole mess. Windows and Office seems to have passed that point a few years ago.
Re: Microsoft Has Gone Downhill (Score:1)
One can only hope that the Windows and Office source code will one day spontaneously combust.
Copy/paste is now crap as well (Score:2)
When I do quotes for equipment, I receive an email (in Outlook) with the information.The body of the email, with all the information, is copied then pasted into Word so it can be sent around to the appropriate groups for approval.
As of today, that simple process is borked. Margins are all over the place, words are getting cut off, spacer bars aren't displayed correctly, and so on.
Up until today everything was more or less good. It was never perfect, but as of today it's practically unusable.
At this point
Re: (Score:2)
> At this point Microsoft needs to be shut down. They've so thoroughly mangled the simplest of processes they can't be counted on to do anything useful or securely.
Indeed. They have lost control of Windows and Office and things are now in a slow, long downward spiral. Typical sign of excessive technological debt. There likely is no way to fix things anymore at this stage and it all needs to be thrown away.
some put it into teletype mode (Score:2)
some put it into teletype mode
Error More Frequent- (Score:3)
when printer turned on.
How many errors seen when printer is off?
Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's simply amazing to me how many basic OS things MS still struggles with. Printers. Start menu. File search. Updates. They've been doing this for DECADES, yet they still haven't got a handle on these trivially basic tasks.
Re: (Score:3)
I have concluded a long tiome ago that Microsoft is simply incompetent and has been faking it all along. As complexity increses over time, they cbecome less and less able to hide it though as the whole thing starts to crumble.
Re: Amazing (Score:1)
When you get the lowest paid Tea Wallah to update a USB device driver, that is what happens.
Shades of the 20th century (Score:1)
I saw this a lot if you power-cycled a printer in the middle of a printout back in the day.
The printer would start up ready to accept ASCII/plain-text input OR special instructions to switch modes.
If it powered off and back on in the middle of a print job, the 2nd part of the print job would print as plain text. At best, this usually meant wasting a boatload of paper and a lot of time.
QA issues everywhere (Score:2)
IOS 18 was pretty much a disaster when it rolled out and is half fixed at best. Apple Intelligence (the small pert of it that is actually implemented) really deserves to be renamed Augmented Idiocy. It's bad enough that I wiped the drive and went back to Sonoma. It's AI-free.
And yet Microsoft just has to upstage them by breaking a printer driver plus all the other kvetching I hear about Windows 24H2.
Good old Microcrap (Score:2)
The building, long since badly maintained and stupidly constructed from the start, is starting to crumble faster and faster.
Meanwhile MS spreads Fecies-Like AI Over Windows (Score:2)
I am considering packing up and leaving Windows for good. I now use Linux about half of the time, now.
Oblig 15 years ago (Score:2)
"That's not random text, that's Perl code!"
Obviously, expecting ... (Score:5, Funny)
"PC LOAD LETTER"
Re: (Score:2)
PC LOAD A4
Re: Obviously, expecting ... (Score:2)
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42
In case you're curious... (Score:2)
"PC" meant "primary cassette", the main paper tray of HP printers of the time. Other paper trays connected would say other things there when out of paper. "Letter" is the paper size.
Re: (Score:1)
> "PC" meant "primary cassette"
Yet grandpa kept trying to stick paper into the Wintel computer. "The panel told me to!"
Still looking for the "Any" key...
Re: (Score:2)
> "PC" meant "primary cassette", the main paper tray of HP printers of the time. Other paper trays connected would say other things there when out of paper. "Letter" is the paper size.
Thanks, though I'm old enough to have actually worked with the original HP LaserJet printers that first displayed that. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
I would love to see "All Your Base Are Belong to Us".