HP Printer Software Turns Up Uninvited on Windows Systems 51
Windows users are reporting that Hewlett Packard's HP Smart application is appearing on their systems, despite them not having any of the company's hardware attached. From a report: While Microsoft has remained tight-lipped on what is happening, folks on various social media platforms noted the app's appearance, which seems to afflict both Windows 10 and Windows 11. The Windows Update mechanism is used to deploy third-party applications and drivers as well as Microsoft's updates, and we'd bet someone somewhere has accidentally checked the wrong box.
Up to now, the response from affected users has been one of confusion. One noted on Reddit: "I thought that was just me. I didn't install it, it just appeared on new apps in start menu out of nowhere." Another said: "I just checked and I had it installed too. Checking the event log for the Microsoft Store shows that it installed earlier today, but I definitely did [not] request or initiate it because I do not have any devices from HP." And, of course, there was the inevitable: "Would it be that hard for Microsoft to just provide an operating system without needless bloat?" To be clear, not all users are affected.
Up to now, the response from affected users has been one of confusion. One noted on Reddit: "I thought that was just me. I didn't install it, it just appeared on new apps in start menu out of nowhere." Another said: "I just checked and I had it installed too. Checking the event log for the Microsoft Store shows that it installed earlier today, but I definitely did [not] request or initiate it because I do not have any devices from HP." And, of course, there was the inevitable: "Would it be that hard for Microsoft to just provide an operating system without needless bloat?" To be clear, not all users are affected.
Well, Windows _is_ a malware distribution system (Score:5, Informative)
Or rather that is one of the few things it does well...
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It doesn't even do that well, windows update breaks itself all the time
If there was ever an HP device within wifi range. (Score:2)
Could be support for models with 'e' suffix? (Score:2)
It is probably logged, even if it's on your neighbor's or a guest login wifi. Finally plug and play that works! This is how it is supposed to work amirite?
That's a reasonable hypothesis. However I think the utility is being treated like a common driver since various low end HP printers require it. Beware of HP printers whose model numbers end in 'e'. Ex m209dw vs m209dwe. The 'e' suffix models require an HP account, only work with HP toner or ink, etc. I' betting this utility is involved in such nonsense.
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I wonder (Score:2)
M$ trips up, thinks its installed, install the printer from the Store.
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This was my assumption when it appeared on my laptop.
I thought it was an update to the hp printer driver/app that I haven't used in a couple years. I do still have an hp all-in-one laser printer, and have used it with the laptop in the past.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, I had it show up last night on a brand new Win 10 VM which resides on a network with no HP printers.
It used to be that I installed a "vanilla" copy of Windows to get rid of the crud that hardware manufacturers shoveled onto their machines, now Microsoft is installing it automatically via Windows Update...
Aaron Z
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It's probably an issue with some bit of hardware having an VID/PID that HP accidentally claimed as their own. Or maybe legitimately claimed as their own, and someone else made a mistake in using it.
There isn't really any control over VID/PID pairs. There are some orgs that oversee handing them out, but because they cost quite a lot of money to join a lot of hardware just picks some and uses them. There's zero enforcement. I know this because I do it a lot.
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You can keep getting updates for printers that you've "uninstalled" because the uninstall process rarely clears everything.
Control panel, devices and printers, click any of the installed printers (even the virtual printers, such as "Microsoft print to PDF), than at the top will appear "Print server properties". Click that, then in the "Drivers" tab, find and click your not-installed printer model and then click the "remove" button.
yet another use case for windows update blocker (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonderful needing to resort to a third party application for disabling pesky nuisance updates.
>buh you can use a GPO or regedit to get around MS's fuckery
yeah, missing the point, entirely.
my computer, my choice. nor should one be expected to buy a more expensive SKU to prevent MS from taking ownership of your computer.
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my computer, my choice. nor should one be expected to buy a more expensive SKU to prevent MS from taking ownership of your computer.
You don't need a more expensive SKU to leverage GPOs. I love people that will install questionable third party programs when a quick search [itechtics.com] would reveal how to solve the problem using built-in functionality.
Regedit also works on Home SKUs and all those third party programs are doing for you is making registry edits....
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well I'm on 10 (not to nitpick).. The nasty thing about disabling windows update is that it has the habit of re-enabling itself. WUB keeps that from happening without having to go back in and re-neuter it, lest some update like this sneaks by. And there's been a few of these types of updates; even a staunch MS ally such as yourself must at least be able to admit that?
But again, (i think we've had this exact same sparring match recently..) I do not think you should have to resort to any of this to keep MS
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Just to be clear, I am NOT a "staunch MS ally". I administer and support their products professionally, which is why I know what I do about them, but the only Microsoft product in my personal life is Windows 10 on an old desktop I picked up for 4X games.
My daily driver laptop is a Mac. Linux is spread throughout our house (home built DVR and NVR, Samba file server, home built router, VPN server, Raspberry Pis for various functions) and my professional life. I have to know the Microsoft ecosystem, beca
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Not installing updates leaves you vulnerable to known security flaws.
And what offers a better alternative? Linux users blindly apt-upgrade, hoping that the distro and repo maintainers know what they are doing. MacOS users accept every update Apple sends, just as blindly.
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Linux users blindly apt-upgrade, hoping that the distro and repo maintainers know what they are doing.
If I care, I can look at the changes. If I really care a lot, I can run LFS.
Linux as well (Score:3)
Re: Linux as well (Score:2)
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Slackware also did something weird where KDE had two volume controls that somehow did two different things.
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That's an issue on multiple distros when upgrading KDE. You can end up with both the old kmix and the new Plasma PulseAudio tray icon running at the same time.
Multimedia in general is a big mess on Linux, with OSS vs ALSA wars of a decade+ ago, then made worse with PulseAudio being a CPU-sucking layer on top of ALSA that injects lots of bugs for an incremental quality-of-life improvement. OSX/Darwin and BeOS solved how audio should be handled on a desktop OS. And Linux was never willing to simply copy what
Re: Linux as well (Score:2)
Pipewire with wireplumber largely solves the problems. It replaces both pulseaudio and JACK and also supports ALSA clients, giving them network audio and per application volume. I've been running it with very good results for a while now. You do need to keep pulseaudio installed for the client library, but you can disable the daemon.
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I'm still using JACK2. So many "standards" to choose from. But agreed that Pipewire is pretty exciting. Even if it lacks some fundamental architecture for real-time processing that has been solved on other OSes for 20 years.
If I were to design this, I'd lean on an eBPF-based design to handle the kernel-side processing with fewer user space context switches that kills real-time stuff on Linux.
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Pipewire came to my attention because on my Fedora box, it suddenly failed to update, and whined about it. (Didn't know it was there until then.)
This is probably not the ideal introduction to the baffled user, who wonders WTF it's doing now....
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Pipewire with wireplumber largely solves the problems.
Just as pulse audio finally grinds forth into a vaguely stable state[*] it gets replaced! Somehow this is very Linux.
[*] As in it hardly ever needs killing and restarting. Barely monthly does it just go south and all the audio comes out weird an fuzzy.
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A stable state of still being shit, yeah.
Like another piece of software we all know and love from the same guy
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I usually use a wrapper like PortAudio when programming because Linux hasn't really settled on any standard for decently performing audio. Plus PortAudio is quite a bit easier to use than Window's WASAPI. The compromise is that the higher level abstraction is less powerful and performs worse. So if I were writing something like a professional DAW for OSX and Windows I'd have to really benchmark wrapper libraries in my use case before I'd consider using it over the OS-specific low-level APIs.
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Also, hplip has a tray icon that will sit in your tray.
Re: Linux as well (Score:2)
You can uninstall just hplip without uninstalling anything else. You'll still have unwanted libraries, but at least your apps menu will be cleaner.
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OTOH, hplip is Free software, so subject to 3rd party audits and isn't the 1000 pound hog that is HP's windows software.
None of my machines (Debian and Ubuntu) got it installed by default.
They are famous for it (Score:2)
I remember one of the first color printers replaced the Windows spooler with their own, just to enable it to check "paper out", at that time a novelty.
Unfortunately for worldwide companies, it checked thousands of their printers on their net all over the world, until the net failed under the traffic.
Lan printer support (Score:1)
One possible reason for including it is that not all printers are connected to that computer.
Using a lan or cloud hp printer, would make use of it.
I agree it shouldn't be forced.
Some HP printers require it ... (Score:2)
"Would it be that hard for Microsoft to just provide an operating system without needless bloat?"
Yes, given that some HP printers require it, its probably best for MS to treat it like a common driver for plug-and-play purposes.
"It's for your (and their) own good" (Score:2)
Looks like MS Store is to blame (Score:2)
I can see it on my Lenovo
Joe recently bought HP Smart (Score:2)
This was even weirder because I have parental controls on my sonâ(TM)s computer, and I got an email out of nowhere that he had bought HP Smart for $0.
In other news... (Score:1)
Wonderful (Score:3)
What a wonderful piece of garbage Windows has evolved into. How the hell this turd continues to command such an audience is beyond me.
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Charge them rent (Score:2)
it just appeared on new apps in start menu out of nowhere
That's pretty expensive real estate on my system.
Oh Lordy... (Score:3)
Just so you know... (Score:1)
Or its just malware (Score:2)
"Made to be less hated" (Score:2)
https://www.arendserohland.com... [arendserohland.com]
Yep, going well there, I see. Forcing people to take your software even if they have no need of it - yep, "less hated" for sure. /s
It's the HP smart ink scam (Score:1)