Canon MF 4350D Driver Problem

[aerofanatic]

I am lost trying to fix this problem, and you guys are my last hope. I came across some similar forum questions on the internet and there was no reply there to address the issue.

- I bought this printer yesterday, came home, plugged it in, and installed the drivers on my Desktop, which runs Windows XP.
- Then four messages pop up one by one at the bottom right:
     - Unknown device found
     - Installing Driver
     - Your hardware is ready to use
     - One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it.
- So I could not find the printer anywhere on my computer.
- I realized I should have installed the driver first, then plugged the printer in.
- So I uninstalled the drivers, unplugged the printer, installed the drivers, then plugged the printer in.
- The same thing kept happening.
- I tried a couple more times, tried downloading a driver from their website instead of using the CD driver, and nothing helped
- So I plugged the printer in to my laptop, which has Windows Vista, and it asked for the driver file, so I put the CD in
- Vista kept asking for about 3 times for me to pick the right installation file from the CD (as there were four different languages), and it went through the installation four times.
- Finally, it installed on my laptop & I was able to print. However, I was unable to run the firmware update which lets me fix the Start button issue on this printer (you cannot scan with the Start button on the printer without the firmware update).
- I gave up, plugged the printer back in to the PC (this time in the front) and turned everything off.
- Today morning, the printer was showing up, but when I printed, it kept telling me that a SendPrint call could not be made.
- I called Canon (they have a horrible automated system) and we went through reinstalling the driver all over, which did not help
- We tried switching from the gold to the silver USB cables and it still did not help
- We tried different USB ports, it didn't help
- I plugged in a portable hard drive and it worked fine on the USB port, so there wasn't a hardware related issue with my computer.
- Dell (the manufacturer of my PC) said that it could be a software related issue, but this has worked just fine for a lot of users.

Can you please help me install this printer on my PC? It was a great deal and I would hate to have this returned!!!

Info:
Printer: Canon ImageCLASS MF 4350D
PC: Dell Dimension 4600 Desktop, Windows XP, USB 2.0 Ports, 512 MB Memory, P4 3.6 GHZ, bought in late 2003...
Laptop: Dell Inspiron 1500, Windows Vista Ultimate, USB 2.0 Ports, 2.0 GB Memory, Dual Core 1.8 GHz, bought in 2007

[Geek-9pm]

Hello aerofanatic.
Welcome to this forum. This is the best place I know of where people will give you honest answers. Not always right, but very frank .

You have done all the things you should do. You did a great job of research and trying something different. That's the way to go! FYI, plugging in printer and not do the install first is a very bad habit. You have to stop doing that. Becasue some printer drivers can never be right when you do that. You knot only have to un install, you have to go back a day or two in the System Restore to clean out registry references to the bad install.

Key question: Are you happy with the way the printer works on Vista? Who sold you doing firmware update on a new printer? That sounds like a reason to take the printer back. We are not talking about some hidden feature.

[(you cannot scan with the Start button on the printer without the firmware update).

Unless somebody else here has a easy answer, I say take it back while you still are inside the warranty period. This qualifies as a manufacturing defect.