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I have two conflicting HP Printers (OfficeJet Pro 6830 and OfficeJet 7110): if I install the driver for the second printer, it corrupts the installation of the first one: the documents don't arrive at the print queue anymore, and even if in the Control Panel-> devices and printers, the printer appears, if I click on 'Properties', I get a system message telling me: "This printer is not currently installed...". If I uninstall all HP software, and delete all reference to the printers from registry and from Device Manager, upon reinstall the HP installer still fails to correctly register the printer. If I proceed with the HP troubleshooter "HP Installation Failure - Unknown Device.hta", it downloads another tool, which locates the error in the file "HPMACRONAMES.GPD", and corrects it.

After this step, I am able to reinstall and correctly register my Officejet Pro 6830, and get it to work. However, if I then proceed to reinstall the OfiiceJet 7110, the same issue reappears!

Edit 09.06.2018:

After a lot of trial-and-error, I have now boiled down the problem to that one conflicting driver file: HPMACRONAMES.gpd

  • the OfficeJet 6830 driver uses a version (a) of HPMACRONAMES.gpd which dates from 16 July 2014, 03:52:00 and is 16'491 bytes big.
  • the OfficeJet 7110 driver uses a version (b) from 9 october 2014, 05:22:38 which is 11'251 bytes.

Both drivers install such file into directory C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3 .

If version (a) is installed, the OJ6830 works, but the OJ7110 doesn't receive any job into its print queue. It's impossible to send even a test page from the settings dialogue: if I do so, the system responds with a popup "You do not have permission to modify the settings for this printer. If you need to change the settings, contact your system administrator." (note that I am logged in as system administrator).

If on the other hand version (b) is installed, the OJ7110 works, but the OJ6830 can't be used.

Question: does anybody see a workaround to this? Is there some probability to modify the printer installations in a way to use both versions of the macronames.gpd (located in different directories), so that I can print from both printers from the same system?

Actually, I can manually copy the correct version of the driver into the directory before printing on each one of the printers, but for practical reasons, I need to have a 'push-the-button-and-print' solution.

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  • Please edit to include the content from that offsite link into the question itself (questions should be self-contained and not rely on offsite resources).
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Jul 11, 2017 at 22:04
  • Thanks @DavidPostill, I have edited the question describing the full issue.
    – 1NN
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 10:22
  • Are you running a software installer for the 7110? Have you tried manually adding the 7110?
    – Yorik
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 19:47
  • @Yorik - I have tried both with the HP Installer software, and through control panel->add printer. The result is always the same
    – 1NN
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 20:17
  • You tried the HP forum, but it might be worth contacting HP tech support directly.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 21:15

2 Answers 2

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The normal way that installations get corrupted is when the files in the installed directory of that program change and the required program does not have its required files. In this case, maybe both installations are happening in highly similar paths or perhaps, in the same folder?

To address this, it is recommended to create a distinctly separate directory for each kind of installation. You can do this by selecting the directory that you would like to install the driver to. That option can be found when you select

Custom or Advanced Install

instead of

Standard or ExpressInstall

Hope this helps. Cheers!

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  • This would have been a nice solution. I have checked, and there is no way to set a custom installation path. Also, since we are talking about DRIVERS, the conflict most probably happens within some shared DLL file, or within a windows folder which is set by default, and which can't be changed.
    – 1NN
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 19:25
  • >1. Install the driver for Printer A. >2. Make backup of installation by copying that folder. >3. Uninstall driver for Printer A. >4. Install the driver for Printer B. >5. Make backup of installation of Printer B >6.Compare backups to see which files have been changed and how many there are in total. >7.Post back here.
    – ValarMorghulis
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 9:18
  • I have boiled down the problem to one conflicting file, hpmacronames.gpd, as explained in the revised question
    – 1NN
    Commented Jun 9, 2018 at 20:27
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In both V3 and V4 print driver models, .gpd files could be nested using "*Include" directive. In ".gpd" file of your first driver, you may find a reference to "HPMACRONAMES.GPD". The included ".gpd" file normally is located in the same driver directory while as you could not specify the included .gpd file path in "*include" line(s) of your root .gpd file.

It seems that the second driver installation, overwrites the "HPMACRONAMES.GPD". To get sure you can copy the initial version in a safe path after the first driver installation and then compare the initial version with the original one after second driver installation. In this way you may find some lead(s) to root of the problem if it is related to any changes in your mentioned ".gpd" file.

It seems that your drivers are V3 while in V4 drivers any changes in driver files (even text based files like ".gpd", ".inf" or "...-manifest.ini") or driver install directory breaks driver package signature (for V4 drivers, windows protects "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository" firmly against any changes).

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  • Thanks, this is usefu background information, but it doesn't reply to my question asked in the last two paragraphs. In fact, both drivers write the hpmacronames.gpd into C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3 (and windows 10 overwrites them on every update with the most recent version). What I would need to know is if there is any way to change the path of hpmacronames.gdp for one of the two drivers, without doing reverse-engineering.
    – 1NN
    Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 9:42
  • 1- Install the first driver; 2- Find the ".gpd" file that references your conflicting ".gpd" file (hpmacronames.gpd); 3- Rename it to " hpmacronames_1.gpd" in the main ".gpd" file; 4- Rename "hpmacronames.gpd" to " hpmacronames_1.gpd in "C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3"; 5 Install the second driver; Now I should work.
    – amirfg
    Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 14:51
  • To find the main ".gpd" file based on its content you can use"Agent Ransack" or "Search Everything" as free tools
    – amirfg
    Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 14:57

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