Hello,

I have an Epson color 580 printer from like 15 years ago. Worked great with XP. When I tried to print with Windows 8.1, it directed me to save the file as an .xps or something. I couldn't get the .xps to print. I did some reasearch and people said to disable the windows .xps viewer or whatever it's called in controll panel and make my printer the primary printing device. I disabled and removed the default .xps viewer and the fax under the printers section which automatically moved my printer ('USB Printer') up from 'secondary' to 'primary' but it still wouldn't print. Then I realized I didn't install the printer driver. I put the driver CD in but nothing at all happened. I went to Epson's site and downloaded the XP driver because it was the latest version. It gave an error after installing but I restarted and tried to print anyway. When I tried to print, it said 'no printers were set up' and asked to 'install one?' so I hit yes, but it found the printer on someone else's computer in another room of this house and I thought I wasn't on any sort of network/workgroup sharing and I don't want to be. I had 'find printer and devices on network..." set to OFF in settings. I have eveything that I can see in settings set to not be on the Workgroup/Network sharing. I tried "The printer that I want isn't here" but that didn't work. With XP, when I used to format, it would show me the name(s) of the workgroups during the format, and I would never join what was default named WORKGROUP. When formatting Windows 8.1, it didn't show anything about workgroups while I installed it.

The last thing I want is to possibly have my data shared on the network. I've had 8.1 installed for a few days now but I haven't taken anything from my external drive that I saved from my XP machine in case it can be read from other computers in this house or via Wi-Fi. I really need that data but have been waiting because of this.

So, besides letting me know how I can make sure I'm 0% on the workgroup network if that's even possible, do I need to buy a newer printer to use with windows 8.1 or can I make the Epson color 580 work?
Thanks a lot.

• Edited by bill hatess Friday, February 14, 2014 10:07 PM

somebody please help me

bump

Hi Bill,

There is quite a few questions in your post so I will try to cover them. First, I am happy to hear your choice to use Windows 8, but regarding your workgroup issue. All Windows OS will be part of a workgroup, often called (by default) Workgroup or Home. If any other computer on your network is using the same workgroup name and is sharing e.g. printers it might result in you see it, but my guess is, you cant connect to it without the right username and password. Another new feature you need to be aware of in Windows 8 is the HomeGroup feature http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/homegroup which is Workgroup on steroids and will allow users in the same HomeGroup to share content across a home network, e.g. printers, pictures movies etc. That mentioned, none of this is enabled by default. However if you accept the network to be a home network some sharing features will be enabled (based on the location awareness in the Windows Firewall), and I guess you have accepted this otherwise network discovery wouldnt be active that said, it can be differ in Windows 8 versions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions)

Regarding your printer it might be a good solution to go get e new printer, however you might be able to make it work by using a generic Epson printer driver or by using Epson Universal Printing. Unfortunately Universal Printing is for selected Epson printers only.

My Epson knowledge is limited, but a quick search gave me an idea, how about try to use the EPSON Creativity Suite 1.30 for Windows 7 (http://esupport.epson-europe.com/ProductHome.aspx?lng=en-IE&data=qBjAbS6NcI1PPmGd+PArU002FvIhL+ZEhLyrbsKseXRJHfYU003D&tc=6) and see if that will do the trick ensure you select the appropriate driver, 32-bit vs. 64-bit.

--Jesper