Installing an Incompatible Printer Drivers on Windows 10

After upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7 SP1 my old Epson printer (which had previously worked fine in the Win7) has stopped printing. On the Epson official website, I can only download the driver version for Windows 7 x64. But I couldn’t find the printer drivers for Windows 10. I tried to install the printer driver from Win 7 on Windows 10, but the printer simply doesn’t print after the installation is finished. Is it possible to somehow make my old Epson printer work in Win10?

Answer

Most printer vendors regularly update their device drivers to support the latest versions of Window. But manufacturers usually forget about old models of printers. As a result, when moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10, some users find that the printer driver, which worked normally in Windows 7, turned out to be incompatible with Windows 10. Do not throw out the printer because of this? In this article I will explain how to install an unsupported (incompatible) print driver from an earlier version of Windows on Windows 10.

Note. Before installing an incompatible print driver, we strongly recommend that you search the manufacturer website for an latest version of the Windows 10 print driver. You should also try using an universal print driver from your manufacturer, since such drivers usually support a large number of printer models (HP Universal Print Driver, Samsung Universal Print Driver, etc).

As an example, we will install the Windows 7 driver for a rather old HP 2010 printer.

Connect the printer to your computer (via USB, LPT !!, or make sure that the printer is accessible via the TCP/IP network);
If you have previously tried to install an old version of the printer driver and the printer doesn’t print with it, be sure to remove the old driver before installing it in compatibility mode. You can remove the printer driver in the section Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers. Select the Printers section and click on the top menu “Print server properties”. Click the “Drivers” tab, select the printer driver and click the “Remove” button. Also remove the programs that may have been installed during the driver installation;
Right-click on the driver installation program file (*.exe) and select the “Troubleshoot compatibility” item;
Select the “Troubleshoot program” item;
Check the box “The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now” and click Next;
Select that this program worked fine in Windows 7;
Click on the button “Test the program”;
The program will ask for permission to install;
Install the program;
After completing the driver installation, make sure that a new printer appears in the system.

Tip. The installation of an unsigned drivers is prohibited in Windows 10 x64. Therefore, if the printer driver is not signed, or has an incorrect digital signature, you will have to sign this driver yourself or boot Windows 10 in the mode with the driver signature enforcement disabled.

If you don’t have the printer driver installation file, but only a set of INF, CAB and DLL files, you can install the driver like this:

Install the driver by right-clicking on the INF file of the driver and select “Install”;
In the Settings panel, run the new printer installation wizard. After the end of the automatic search, select the option “The printer that I want isn’t listed”;
In the Add Printer wizard, select the option “My printer is a little older. Help me to find it”;
Wait until the wizard finds the connected printer (make sure the printer cable is securely connected to the computer);
Select a printer, driver and try to print a test page.

Now you can use your old printer (you can even share it), despite the fact that its driver is not officially supported by Windows 10.