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I have an HP LaserJet 1300 printer connected to my network via a JetDirect 250m LIO Internal Print Server. The printer works from any Windows 8.1 computer on my network, but I have been unable to find an appropriate driver for Windows 10. The printer only understands PCL5 and PS.

The driver I use on Windows 8.1 is "hp LaserJet 1300 PCL 5".

When I browse for drivers on Windows 10 via Windows Update, I do not see any drivers for the HP LaserJet 1300 listed:

Windows Update HP Drivers

From what I can tell, the HP Support site doesn't have a specific driver available, but rather a Universal Print Driver Resource Kit.

I have tried a few options from the Microsoft Catalog, but haven't found one that will install on Windows 10. In some driver packages (e.g., 20568741_9f7ed152438e555403cc0ba21cf7518b82d77c24.cab) Windows failed to find a compatible driver. However, in drivers_1643fcb8538e3ab20a0f7ca3ff570a530d16ef37.cab (UpdateID: 0e74c751-425f-4841-bf35-9840568b9cfb0e74c751-425f-4841-bf35-9840568b9cfb) Windows 10 finds a compatible hp LaserJet 1300 PCL 5 driver but I get a driver failed to install message a moment after applying the change.

With UpdateID: f2550b86-0b07-47f4-9f95-888c1e6769c7 (drivers_af41d239df5205c515b59d342f910a4a916e54b9.cab), I repeatedly was prompted to install the driver every time I attempted to print.

Failed driver install

On the HP Community Support forum, I found a June 2017 reference to an HP document (no longer available) that states that HP removed PCL5 support from its Universal Print Driver (UPD). The document further stated that HP UPD 6.1.0 was the last release to include support for PCL5. That version of UPD used to be available via the HP FTP site, but were removed from the site at some point between 2017 and 2023.

I still had a copy of UPD 5.9.0 x64 that I used on Windows 8.1. Windows 10 allowed me to go through the motions of installing the driver, but later tells me that the driver is not installed (as above, when I tested the drivers from the Microsoft Catalog).

I am very attached to this printer, which, aside from some maintenance, has been working reliably for 20 years.

Is there any way to get a working LaserJet 1300 PCL5 driver installed on Windows 10?

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    If HP is only offering the Universal driver, it indicates that the printer is considered "end of life" and only basic functionality common with current supported printers will be supported. If the Universal driver doesn't work for you, your only choice, functionally, is to replace the printer with a newer, supported model.
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 15:54
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    Connect the printer directly (not thru network) to a Windows 10 computer and let Windows install the correct driver for you.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 16:24
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    The Universal USB driver "doesn't contain a compatible software driver for your device".
    – Parker
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 17:17
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    @Mokubai The Universal Driver for Windows 10 no longer contains a PCL5 driver.
    – Parker
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 17:18
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    In that case it's sometimes possible to transfer the driver by sharing it. Either share the printer from the source to the target machine then manually add the printer again to the target machine, or manually add the printer to the target machine with a generic driver, share it to the source machine, and then use the source machine to change it to the correct driver.
    – Neil
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 6:47

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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I found a solution. The Wayback Machine has an archive of the last version of UPD that contained a PCL5 driver (version 6.1.0):

I installed UPD 6.1.0 and went through the wizard to create the printer. I used the IP Address option to create a Standard TCP/IP Port (IP Address, Generic Network Card - NOT JetDirect), port 9100, raw).

UPD 6.1.0 PCL5

The test page worked, which was great, but it also had all of the HP Universal Driver nag windows popping up during the print job.

So, I deleted the printer but left the port, and created a new network printer using the manual option. This time, "hp LaserJet 1300 PCL 5" was a driver option! This came from the "failed" attempt at installing this driver:

With UpdateID: f2550b86-0b07-47f4-9f95-888c1e6769c7 (drivers_af41d239df5205c515b59d342f910a4a916e54b9.cab), I repeatedly was prompted to install the driver every time I attempted to print. Ultimately, this driver version (6.1.7233.1) was the one that ended up working. However, if this is done when creating a new printer, it will work fine.

hp LaserJet 1300 PCL 5 driver

I selected the "hp LaserJet 1300 PCL 5" driver, and this printer is working perfectly with Windows 10 now (without the HP pop-ups).

hp LaserJet 1300 PCL 5 device

Port Settings

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    Nice, explicit answer that will help others with that issue.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 18:02
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    A side note that usually you don't need to match printer model: picking any printer that supports PCL5 is fine. The different models have different capabilities that the driver knows about (eg different types of paper trays) but most of them don't matter for the purposes of just getting the thing to print.
    – user1908704
    Commented Jul 19, 2023 at 13:58
  • @user1908704 Agreed. This model (and the 1200 and 1320, probably) have a single tray with an additional feeder for envelopes, as well as an optional lower paper tray. There are probably 3 or 4 printers that HP made in this configuration. 20 years of Word templates makes me err on the side of specificity.
    – Parker
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 0:26
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    Microsoft still offers (Windows 10 and 11) a generic "HP Laserjet Family Driver PCL5" via Windows Update, but it will not automagically offer it. You need to tell Windows you want to manually select a driver and then wait several minutes for Windows to pull the full list of drivers from WindowsUpdate. There is also a bunch of PCL5 drivers for Laserjet 4 and 5 variants.
    – Tonny
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 22:12
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PCL6 is backward compatible with PCL5.

Just add the printer in Windows 10 as a TCP/IP device, then select the built-in Microsoft PCL6 driver and cross your fingers: enter image description here

Source from HP's website: https://developers.hp.com/hp-printer-command-languages-pcl/doc/hp-pcl6-pcl-xl#:~:text=PCL6%20Standard%3A%20Equivalent%20to%20PCL5e%20or%20PCL5c%2C%20intended%20to%20provide%20backward%20compatibility.

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    This was the very first thing I tried. Everything looks great, but when I try to print a test page it just sits in the queue until Windows finally tells me that the document failed to print. Either the printer or the JetDirect module is rejecting PCL6. I was able to get the PS version of the driver "working", but images take forever to spool and often fail to print (or in some cases I end up with hundreds of pages of PostScript code being printed instead of the rendered document, requiring me to babysit every print job). Your answer may work with some printers, but not mine.
    – Parker
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 18:47
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    @Parker Oh I get it now. Sorry I was'nt more of help. That's worked for me 99% of the time, when I worked as IT
    – Netan
    Commented Jul 19, 2023 at 15:57
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    I hear you. I did my time as a SysAdmin for years, and believe me, I prefer to use the most recent version wherever possible. This was just one of those edge cases where there is just barely a solution.
    – Parker
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 0:22
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    HP did some very confusing naming. Although technically, yes, they used PCL6 Standard (emphasis on Standard) to denote a compatible version, most of what you'll find under the name PCL6 is actually PCL6 Enhanced (formerly known as PCL XL) that's completely different from PCL5, they don't even look remotely similar. It's very unlikely to find a real PCL6 driver that would print anything to a former PCL5 printer. (Source: I'm author of a printing app that can print to both formats, without any OS drivers, generating its own printer data from the first byte to the last one).
    – Gábor
    Commented Jul 21, 2023 at 0:25
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    @Parker No, certainly not, I wouldn't mind. Your LJ 1300 is, as far as I can tell from any printer format data I have, a PostScript plus PCL6 printer. I treat it as "real" PCL6, that's Enhanced. So does the Linux world: openprinting.org/printers (this actually suggests all three, PS, PCL5 and PCL6).
    – Gábor
    Commented Jul 26, 2023 at 8:15
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If Universal Print Driver Resource Kit does not meet your needs, just create a virtual machine running Windows 8.1, put on the 8.1 HP driver, and print from there. For example, here is Oracle's VirtualBox, and there are other VM's, as well.

Yes, this is a nuisance of a workaround, and might take 40 GB on the drive to save the VM, but it allows use of deprecated drivers: HP, of course, would rather you buy a new printer ;-)

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    This was an interesting idea, but this is a work computer, and I wouldn't be able to run unsupported or unlicensed versions of Windows. I did consider sharing the printer from my Windows 8.1 PC (my personal laptop), but that is often in sleep mode, and I don't want to be mixing network traffic (the printer is in a DMZ).
    – Parker
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 18:17
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    BTW, Windows can legally be used without activation, according to this article, learningpenguin.net/2018/07/21/… , but your company's policy is the determining factor.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jul 21, 2023 at 18:39

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