Is the Epson Software Updater considered harmful?

InkjetMall Customer Support
1

In the inkjetmall newsletter of 5/08/2018, we were warned not to install firmware updates from Epson, as these may knock out our printers’ ability to use 3rd party chips.

never opt into any firmware update for your printer if prompted. These messages may take the form of a dialog box when using the OEM software on your computer, or on the LCD control panel of the printer itself

I have a P400 printer. I do nozzle checks using the OEM utility on Windows.

Today, when my nozzle check completed, I got this pop-up

EDIT: the img tags aren’t working. The popup says "A new version of Software Updater was found. You must install the new version before continuing. Do you want to update now? Yes No

I clicked “No” because of the warning in the newsletter. But when the popup says “you MUST install the updater before continuing” I wonder what the consequences of saying “No” will be. For example, will the printer no longer turn on the ink light when it thinks a cartridge is empty?

2

Wow that is so pushy from epson.

You need to figure out how to uninstall the driver. Then download only the driver, not the combo package from epson and install that.

-Walker

3

It would be easier to simply uninstall the Software Updater program.uninstall%20epson%20software%20updater

4

I realize that this is an old topic from 3 years ago, but I wanted to be sure it was still relevant, since I want to install the printer driver for my Epson P600 on another computer and didn’t want to totally mess up my printer.

This topic says that as long as I only install the driver and NOT the Software Updater, it should be OK and no firmware will be updated (which is obviously what we want to avoid).

What about some of the Utilities? Have any of them become something that might cause a firmware update unbeknownst to an unsuspecting user like me? On my old computer, I have the EpsonNet Config Utility and I think another one called EpsonNet Print.

Anyway, can anyone reassure me that all of these are still OK to install? (Everything, that is, except the Software Updater).

Thanks,
~~Bonnie

5

No, the utils should not auto-update your firmware.

However, you can do basic nozzle checks directly from the printer’s queue on your computer.

-Walker

6

Thanks, Walker. I got the latest driver. I also got a couple of those Utilities, but in retrospect, I don’t think I even installed any of those on my old computer. I usually do the nozzle checks directly on the printer anyway, so I don’t need the computer for that.

What’s interesting though, is that on the Printing Preferences window on the computer, where it’s supposed to show the Ink Levels … that does not show any of the Ink Levels … they are all greyed-out. Whereas on my old computer, the Ink Levels show just fine. Different version numbers (6.74 vs 6.77). I suspect the problem is probably because of the ConeColor carts. That’s OK, though, I can live with that, as long as nothing else gets screwed up.

I haven’t tried printing yet from the new computer. I have two carts that are still OEM, but just about out of ink, so I don’t want to print anything until I replace them with new ConeColor carts first.

~~Bonnie