Epson Stylus CX5500 driver

[truenorth]

wmk, I am standing by (with fingers crossed for hopefully a eureka moment). In the meanwhile others may offer a more concise term but i would call what you did is a complete reinstall of the operating system and reformat of your harddrive. truenorth
P.S. Of course as i am sure you know a time based restore is not an option now as a result of what you did.

[wmk]

Truenorth,

P.S. If it should become necessary here is a way to disable "windows installer"
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article08-103

This article applies to XP, Windows 2003 and 2000 only.

And the link at the very bottom of the article -  [Windows Vista] Question about "Windows Installer Appears Every Time I start an application"  leads to the following article:
   Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

Is there another article dealing with disabling windows installer in Vista as I am reluctant to use the CleanUp Utility with its caution warning.  Or is there a way to simply remove Version 5.16 from Windows Installer's store of drivers?

Is there any significance in the Printer test page showing the following:
   Environment: Windows NT  x86

[wmk]

Truenorth,
1. I downloaded Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.  Running it, I found only one Epson item in the installed programs listed and that is Epson Attach to email.  No Epson printer software.

2. From the Printer Test Page:
    Driver name - E_FMACAP.DLL
    Driver version - 5.16

3. I found this E_FMACAP.DLL in the following path:
    C:\Windows\system32\spool\DRIVERS\w32x86\3

4. Also in the above path are the additional files used by this particular driver.  These additional files are listed in the printer test page.

Would it work to remove this driver if I delete this E_FMACAP.DLL directly?  Will there be any dire consequences?

[truenorth]

wmk, I am not in a position to advise you re Vista as it is not an O/S i am familiar with to any great degree. However my effort at the moment is to enable you to disable "windows installer " in Vista so as to allow you to try and get the Epson 6.55 drivers installed for your printer. I note that you have gone ahead and used the one i previously linked which as you point out was for XP. I am going to include now corrected info that is related to the disabling of Windows Installer in Vista. Once you have achieved the Widows Installer disabling in Vista i would recommend again totally removing all current software and hardware from your computer as before. Then doing the reinstall (with installer disabled) as per the cx5500 manual and try to download the 6.55 drivers from the site given earlier. It is my belief that your current driver 5.61 is not for your Vista but appears to be designed for Windows NT.
http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-vista-windows-7-support/256178-how-can-i-stop-windows-installer-start-up-install-windows-outlook-my-comput.html
Here is another but it does not specify if it is for Vista. But if by following the advice it leads you through Vista component then it is likely applicable.
http://anything2fix.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/disableinstaller/
Here is another that again does not specify the O/S
http://anything2fix.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/disableinstaller/
By the way ( i assume vista is similar to earlier O/S's ) in that you can go to control panel and under "printers" what printer(s) are shown as installed?
truenorth
P.S. Related to your question
"Would it work to remove this driver if I delete this E_FMACAP.DLL directly?  Will there be any dire consequences?"You will be doing that as a consequence of uninstalling "all" your printer software and hardware if we can ever get you "windows installer" out of the picture for the reinstall. I would appreciate at this point if one of the "Gurus" would come forth if they have a solution to the removal (or disabling ) of Windows installer in Vista that has worked

[wmk]

Truenorth, Hooray! 
Your link techsupportforum.com provides the way to disable Windows Installer:
 Start - run msconfig.exe -services tab (and not the startup tab as indicated in that post).

I'll be uninstalling Epson, then disabling Windows Installer and then reinstalling Epson.  Will let you know how it turns out.

Heartfelt thanks!

P.S. my idea of deleting the driver file for version 5.16 was so that Windows Installer wouldn't be able to install that version again from its driver store.  That was a way around being unable to disable Windows Installer.

[wmk]

Truenorth, Bad news.
Printer test page still shows the driver version to be 5.16, with the same driver name: E_FMAICAP.DLL.

Dead end for me!  Still, I learned a lot in the process thanks to you.

[truenorth]

wmk, I cannot understand why the 5.16 driver is still installed if all the printer software was removed and the printer was reinstalled with the 6.55 driver??? Absent other ideas from other members i have a rather different approach you can try. (it is a bit arcane to just get back to double sided printing). On a separate partition on your computer HDD (or on a different HDD-if you have more than one installed) install an XP version of windows and install the printer on that partition or HDD and for the double sided printing use that combination. Undoubtedly you are beyond the free technical support from Epson by telephone but they may still offer a tech support by email that is free. It doesn't have to be XP by the way 98 would probably be just as good (whatever you may have). I really am very disappointed we could not get this problem resolved and shall continue to devote a few more grey cells to the effort.Will let you know if anything new comes up. Also if you do somehow overcome this issue please post back so we can all learn how it became resolved.truenorth
P.S. If you have access to another computer with Vista on it you could try and install it on it and see what the result is.

[wmk]

Truenorth, the Epson printer driver software has indeed been removed.  That version 5.16 did not come from the Epson CD.  It must have already resided in the Driver store prior to my installation from the CD.  And eventhough disabled, Windows Installer still turned out in the notification area during my installation.  Puzzling.

I have already contacted Epson.  They installed it on a computer with Vista and there's no problem.  They are saying it's nothing to do with the printer and has to do with my computer.  And they stopped there.

There was no problem installing my printer software from the CD, back at the time I bought my printer.

I have a mind to delete the following files as shown on the Printer test page:
  Driver name: E_FMAICAP.DLL
  Data file:       E_FVIFCAP.VIF
  Config file:     E_FUICCAP.DLL

If anything dire happened after the deletion, I'll do another reinstallation of my OS.  What is your opinion?

[truenorth]

wmk, Yes i too had thought of another re installation of the O/S (given that you just did so recently ) as i doubted that you had as of this time accumulated too many irreplaceable files.However that to me is a bit on the drastic side and does not guaranty success. I might have thought at the outset that it was a compatibility issue with the Vista O/S. But when you noted that it had functioned OK with Vista on that computer earlier i felt no need to go there. Plus the now stated that Epson had it functioning on a Vista based computer really seems to isolate it to your computer. I cannot see it being a hardware issue so i feel certain it must be a conflict or absence of some software that is a the basis of the problem.I thought after i made my last post of another idea and I'll relay it now.
Given that you seem to have the ability to disable Windows Installer now--what if you went to the Epson site i previously gave you and downloaded the 6.55 driver to a know location (save as--or whatever Vista uses) to say a new folder on your desktop where you can easily locate it. Then after uninstalling all the hardware and software for the printer reinstalled it again and if the option exists to load a driver from a "known location" manually is available during the installation direct it to the folder on the desktop for the 6.55 from the folder you saved it in.Hope that makes sense.By the way what do you show in "control panel" under printer? Particularly AFTER you have uninstalled it but also when it has been reinstalled as per the manual? How many printers are shown as installed and what are their "properties"? Also it is not as if you cannot use the printer it is just not letting you use the one particular function. Not that i,m suggesting that you shouldn't be able to use it--you bought it with that function and you should have access to it. So you have a variety of options now and i guess you need to decide which if any that you want to try. The absence of any other forum members coming forth either indicates no new ideas or people may be monitoring us digging this hole deeper  . Keep me informed as to what happens please. truenorth

[patio]

I would have bought a new printer by now...they're disposable.

[wmk]

Patio, money may not matter much to you, but I bought my printer just over a year ago and I have no intention whatsoever of disposing a perfectly functioning printer.  And according to Epson, it really wasn't the problem with the printer.  It has to do with my computer.   So would you now tell me to buy another computer, following the same logic?  I'm disappointed that you did not offer something more constructive.  The reason I kept on trying is that I'm simply bugged.

Truenorth, there's a point in checking the Control Panel about printers there.  I have more than one printer showing there and I'll investigate and report back. 

[truenorth]

wmk, More than one is not good (unless of course there are actually more than one). This could be the basis of your problem. The computer is defaulting to only one of them and if that is the one that is causing the problem then it will always display that one.There should only be one if one is all you have connected to that computer. You can change the default one to try and find if it finds one that will operate your double side option correctly or alternatively uninstall ALL of them and start again with a full reinstall following the instructions in your manual and including the manual install of the 6.55 driver if it allows you at some point to do that.truenorth

[Geek-9pm]

Yes i too had thought of another re installation of the O/S (given that you just did so recently ) as i doubted that you had as of this time accumulated too many irreplaceable files.However that to me is a bit on the drastic side and does not guaranty success.

Well... In all this time you could have tried a new install of the OS without destroying the original .
In Vista you can adjust the size of the disk partitions and make room of a second install. The entire process may take several hours, but most of it does not require your attention.
The new copy would be independent of the original. I don't use vista, but I have done this with windows 2000, Windows XP and windows 7. If you have a big hard drive it is practical to have  two or more Windows OS present on separate partitions.

You will not know until you try it.

[truenorth]

Geek,You will note that i did indeed earlier suggest a partitioned 2nd O/S (not Vista however as i stated i am not sufficiently conversant with it to be making recommendations re it's utilization) as a possible solution to the problem. I don't believe wmk has opted for that route yet.truenorth

[wmk]

Truenorth, the two other printers in Printers, Control Panel are:
1. Microsoft XPS Document Writer
2. Sent To OneNote 2007.
So I don't think they affect the Epson printer.

Geek, I'd rather wipe it all out and reinstall my OS in C:, though I have both C and D partitioned equally to 80GB each.  I wanted my documents stored in D as a virus precaution and it seemed a waste of resources to have Vista on both partitions, what with the amount of Windows Updates nowadays.

Truenorth, Geek, I'm still thinking of deleting version 5.16, if possible.  But it seemed risky deleting a .DLL file.   Any advice?