Article link: Oblivion Incompatible with HP Software 1.0

If you have HP Software installed, be sure to terminate the running programs before starting Oblivion. This is a known problem and this is how I handle resolving it. I have an HP PhotoSmart 8450 and an HP ScanJet 4600. If you don't stop the HP software, HP will interrupt the PC (and Oblivion) to "Dial Home" and do whatever it does. When this happens, Oblivion gets very upset and you have to exit Oblivion.

For example, I have a batch file that uses "pskill.exe" to close all HP-Related software that is running before I start Oblivion:

Contents of "START_OBLIVION.BAT"
---------------------------------
@ECHO OFF
CLS
REM ** Stop Incompatible Programs before starting Oblivion. **
pskill hpcmpmgr.exe
pskill hpgs2wnd.exe
pskill hpgs2wnf.exe
pskill hphmon06.exe
pskill hptskmgr.exe
pskill hpwuSchd2.exe
REM ** Start Oblivion. **
"E:GamesOblivionOblivionLauncher.exe"
----------------------------------

pskill is a free program available from SysInternals/Microsoft

If you prefer to kill the processes by hand or need to find the names of the HP processes, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the task manager (Windows XP Pro users need to click Task Manager).

Click the Processes tab and the click Image Name column to sort by name. Find each process that starts with HP and right-click on it and select End Process

I remember back when I used Windows, the trick was to uninstall the drivers, then uncompress the driver install executable as if it were an archive. Then, you could install the printer through the device manager (using the uncompressed HP installation files as the driver search directory) without having HP crapware on your system.

Does that still work?

I don't know if that would work but it wouldn't for me. My wife likes the HP crapware and it would magically re-appear if I "fixed" it.

This solution allows me to play Oblivion without any problems and if wifey wants to do printing stuff, all she needs to do is reboot.

Oh, another problem is that the HP software has to be running for my printer to work. The printer is directly attached to the network and uses DHCP. The HP Software "detects" the printer on the network and connects to the IP it is using at the time. So, I don't think hacking the drivers would work very good in this scenario (even without wifey in the mix).

EDIT: Merged your posts. Please use the edit button rather than double posting. Thanks.

- Switch

Can you make a .bat that starts up all the executables that the first one kills?

Yes but it wouldn't work for anyone else's computer. I install all my apps and drivers to D: but a system restart would probably be a wise thing to do after running a resource hog like Oblivion.

You could use a process explorer by SysInternals that shows the exact location of the HP executables running in memory. Simply type them into a .bat file and it should work.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

Is it possible to query a registry entry from a .bat file? I would *assume* that there should be one that gives the path...

Abramul, querying the registry from a batch can be done with additional help from a Windows Resource Kit (I think), or through VBScript and WMI calls, or KixTart scripts or even AutoIT scripts.

Oh. Windows doesn't support networked printers natively? What a shame.

I don't really mind that Windows doesn't support EVERYTHING natively. I'd rather have a much more lean version of Windows if anything...but that's getting off-topic.

Of what kind incompatible this is about?
As I have HP software and I don't have any problems with Oblivion..

HP Printers can make Oblivion crash a lot, and sometimes sound problems occur. Don't ask me why.

Someone may have already said it, but the offending program is HP's "Share to Web" crappola and it's almost impossible to remove, once it's gotten its tendrils deep into your system. I own a couple of HP printers (don't ask me why, because I hate them) and I had to deal with this problem myself.

I've managed to remove that garbage from my computer and still keep all of my printer's functions, but the procedure is a pain in the neck, unless you really know your way around the nuts and bolts of Windows.

Ya, I have HP printers because of my wife and because I didn't want to screw anything up by messing with the software. I found that using a batch file to kill the HP*.exe processes works quite well and HP will be back to normal once you reboot. In other words, this is a non-destructive fix.

Thanks lhammonds, I didn’t know this. Ironically though, I have HP software myself but disable it anyway - along with several other processes - by running msconfig before playing Obliv, simply to optimise the game performance for myself.

I was ignorant though of the conflict with HP. Thanks again for your great contributions/tutorials/resources etc.