OT: Dymo LabelWriter 400 Turbo

Virtual Machine?

Long ago I had to run an XP VM to use the software to work my scanner.

Cheers

Dave R

My Labelwriter is a 320. I imaging I'd face a similar problem. Its coped with 7, 8 and 10.

Using virustotal.com, the driver package is maybe three years old. That's what the SHA256 is for. You can plug that into the "search" option and that brings up the entry for the scan of the item. I scan items to get metadata info (trivia) about an item. This particular item is an InstallShield installer.

Apparently you DONT plug in the device first. It's an install-the-software-first hardware device. You install, at a minimum, the USB driver from the package. The reason for this, is you don't want the printing device to "bind" to the wrong driver. The software goes in first. Then, when the installer reports successful install, I'd give the machine one reboot, just to be sure everything is stable, then plug in the hardware and see if it shows in Device Manager properly.

Device Manager can be found in the right-click of the Start, about five down from the top. When you plug in the Dymo, after the software is installed, it should show up by name in Device Manager, in the USB section or similar. You may have to look around to find out where it's been put in the listing.

Due to the age of the device, the print arch may have been intended for an older OS. Or, perhaps some of the Program Files content violates some modern requirement. Something like that could always happen. You could run the installer in Compatibility Mode, if it won't otherwise work.

A person designing a driver package, can precisely control what OSes it installs into (in the .inf). If they want to, they absolutely can prevent it from installing in any enumerated OS. But this is unlikely to be the case, unless the print arch has changed so radically, they'd have to rewrite the software to make it work.

When there is no explicit warning on the web page, I just pretend the compatibility table "extends to the right" :-) Try it. And see.

Paul

One other thing. It uses .NET .

start : Run : control

and that runs control.exe and opens the Control Panels on Win11.

From there, select Program and Features. Windows Features link is on the upper left, second item down.

In there, you can turn on .NET 3.0 .

This should enable .NET 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 or so. Installing even older software, that "wants" .NET 1.1 explicitly, I don't know how you're supposed to do that today. But the Dymo, just at a rough guess, would be about .NET 3.0 or so. The Dymo installer will have its own mini-dotNET, but it's better to run the System one first if the plan is to run a lot of older cruft. I have mine turned on, and I can't remember exactly why I bothered. But mine does appear to be turned on.

My "winver.exe" == 22621.1778 (22H2 maybe).

The first version of Win11 is 22000.xxx, the second version is 22621.xxx .

Paul

I used one of those and got it to work with Linux using generic CUPS drivers (don't remember which, but they weren't specific to that model). Perhaps just install it as some other model and see if that works?

Or just try installing the W10 drivers manually?

Theo

I'd have thought it was just a driver issue. I do sometimes feel that companies who make peripherals use this technique to try and force people to throw away perfectly serviceable devices and buy a new one. One way of course is to run everything as a virtual machine under the new operating system, but I do feel we are being conned. Brian

Perhaps Dymo is trying to get everyone to upgrade to the 550 which has DRM on the labels, so you can't use el cheapo labels...

Dave

Who claims that? I'm using a Labelwriter 400 on Windows 11 with the Dymo software (v8.7.4) and no issues.

The claim is here:

Could I be making an error in the installation?

"Not supported" doesn't mean it doesn't work, it may just mean they won't answer the phone if you have questions.

What happened when you tried installing the W10 driver?

Theo

This could be very good news for me :-)

It didn't occur to me to look for a W10 driver specifically. I just accepted the latest driver. I thought the drivers for W10 and W11 were generally the same (but could easily be wrong). Is it something to do with disconnecting the printer first as I remember some complication previously?

I seem to be getting only v1.4.3.131 which does not recognise the printer.

The DymoLabel v8.x is older than DymoConnect v1.x they are different products.

I have an old LabelManager 450, but haven't used it since replacing Win10 laptop with Win11

Thanks. I would buy you a pint if this could be achieved :-)

It's in the 'Not sure which software to choose' section under legacy devices:

It worked. I had failed to explore the additional (legacy) options. Thanks to you and Andy.

not so sure about that, plugging in the USB lead, Win11 automatically detected and loaded a driver for "Dymo Labelmanager 450" with a corresponding print queue, from notepad I created a "hello" label, hit print and out shot a 2" section of white tape.

I install the DymoConnect v1.x software, it doesn't see my actual printer, only a "virtual" D1 tape printer, which it can't print to, because it isn't connected.

The Dymo website doesn't acknowledge that a Labelmanager 450 ever existed, only a Labelwriter 450

I think I'll dig out the last installer i used with Win10 ...

I wondered about that (as there is no mention of LabelManager 450), which is why I restricted myself to a guess.

What I did FWIW was to disconnect the printer. I then downloaded Dymo Label Software v8.5.4 (as you recommended). It's in the legacy devices. During the installation it prompted me to connect the printer, which then worked. I see there is also a v8.7.4.

Yep, the Dymo Label v8.x software works fine, despite them not acknowledging my printer model exists, and their claim that the app isn't supported on Win11 ... as someone suggested, they probably hope to sell more of their new printers which only use the scummy DRM'ed labels.

Result. Thanks for the original inspiration.