Is there a way to 'mimic' another OS from Windows 7 to get a driver / application to install?

I recently bought a HP Officejet 6500, which has the ability scan and fax, besides the default printer functionality.

Howvever, it turns out that the drivers on the CD-ROM and HP website do not support Windows 7. I already tried running the setup.exe in compatibilty mode and I even tried manually installing the .msi packages, with no success.

I am almost certain that there is no actual problem with installing these drivers, as Windows Vista drivers work in almost every case on Windows 7. I am guessing there is simply a hardcoded "block" in the setup file which does not allow me to install the driver.

Besides running application in compatibility mode, is there any other way to actually trick an application into believing you run another OS?

Aron Rotteveel

Posted 2009-09-12T13:01:07.013

Reputation: 1 488

Are you sure you can't get drivers for this from Windows Update? – churnd – 2009-09-12T14:17:51.003

Already tried this. Windows update only provides the actual printer drivers, but I also need to be able to use it as a scanner and fax. These HP-utilities are not included in the Windows update. – Aron Rotteveel – 2009-09-12T15:07:54.883

Answers

you can try to extract the drivers from the MSI package and force-install the driver via the device manager.

right click the device > update driver software ... > Browse My Computer ... > Let me pick from a list > Have Disk ... > point to the *.inf file you have extracted and ignore any warnings.

before you do that, you may create a drive image of your windows 7 partition, in case something does not go according to your plan.

Molly7244

Posted 2009-09-12T13:01:07.013

Reputation:

You can use Universal Extractor to extract the files : http://legroom.net/software/uniextract.

– harrymc – 2009-09-12T13:40:54.540

good point. make it an answer and earn yourself some karma to burn. :) – None – 2009-09-12T13:51:44.447

Blue screen in 3...2....1... – churnd – 2009-09-12T14:16:42.580

@Molly - answer posted. Note: I actually found Universal Extractor in one of your answers in another post ... – harrymc – 2009-09-12T14:18:28.567

i'm a sucker for 'portability' so i'm using UE quite frequently. :) – None – 2009-09-12T14:23:49.213

less MSIerables is another good way to do it, @harrymc . I've had times where MSIerables does it when Universal Extractor wouldn't. Sometimes 7-zip works as well. – Wyatt8740 – 2014-04-13T02:34:23.473

You can use Universal Extractor to extract the files.

harrymc

Posted 2009-09-12T13:01:07.013

Reputation: 306 093

If you have a .exe file to install the drivers, you can install in xp mode, I did this on an old sony vaio that didn't have a display driver for 7. It worked like a charm

Ryan

Posted 2009-09-12T13:01:07.013

Reputation: 1

Its worth mentioning that "XP mode" is available only in Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate versions. – jjk_charles – 2014-12-02T13:52:14.763