EasyShare Update

I uninstalled and reinstalled the Kodak software on my new PC, and my brand new EasyShare 5100 printer still didn't work.

My next move, when I have some time free (maybe tomorrow night) will be to call the Kodak support number that's provided in big print on a flourescent green sheet that was packed in the box. If it's anything other than brain-dead simple to use that service (i.e., if there's a long hold time, an inscrutable phone menu, or a need to provide credit card info or an overabundance of irrelevant personal info before they'll help), I'll be hanging up and moving on to the next step.

The next step is to return the printer to the store for an exchange. Not a refund - I want the printer, I just want a unit that works. I'm actually now hoping that my firmware upgrade failure was the problem (not that I'll be mentioning that particular aspect of the situation to the nice folks at the returns counter). Next time I'll just install from the CD and refuse any updates.

If the new unit doesn't work either, I'll reinstall Windows on the off chance that something's wrong with my current installation. I know that since I had no printer when I built this system last fall, I turned off a couple of services that are used for printing (notably Print Spooler) and had to re-enable them.

Reinstalling won't be as bad as it sounds, since as I've mentioned before, I run a pretty clean C drive with almost everything but the OS on separate partitions, for just such an occasion. Over the last couple of years, that's become one of the first tips I give relatively inexperienced system builders. However, I could face some family backlash if I don't figure out how to preserve / restore all our stored profiles for Hot Wheels: Beat That.


Enough rambling. Here's a picture of a friend's newborn baby, whose body appears to be approximately 30% eyeball.