On 6 September Epson posted to their US support site an update to the Mac driver for the 7900. This takes the driver from version 8.68 to 9.04. About this update, Epson says, "This file corrects a possible issue when printing borderless retain size." The release notes also indicate this update is for OS X 10.5 through 10.8. The download page includes installation instructions, pretty standard fare. There's no mention of a requirement to uninstall the previous driver, so I didn't. After installing the update and checking the version, I see this:
This is similar to what I saw after my update from 8.66 to 8.68. My original installation of the printer, back in October, 2011, was with the 8.65 driver.
This is similar to what I saw after my update from 8.66 to 8.68. My original installation of the printer, back in October, 2011, was with the 8.65 driver.
Interestingly, when I open the Mac's Print & Fax preferences (control panel), click the Options & Supplies... button, the General tab of the resulting dialog still shows the driver version as 8.68.
I've no idea why. I made several prints yesterday and saw no differences in the driver's options or set-up choices. One would expect a full point (from 8.something to 9.something) to have some enhancements or new features rather that only bug-fixes. Of course, Epson does things its own way, and not with any great consistency.
There's one more place, as far as I know, where OS X exposes the driver version. That's in the Printers sheet under Hardware, in the System Profiler. The driver is shown there as 8.6.8.
There's one more place, as far as I know, where OS X exposes the driver version. That's in the Printers sheet under Hardware, in the System Profiler. The driver is shown there as 8.6.8.
I've built a Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) drive for my Mac Pro. When time permits (not real soon, alas) I'll install the new driver on that system. Since it won't be an update installed over an older version. I'd expect the version number to appear correctly in all places. TBD.
--Jay
Mine did the same thing, it still said the old version once i installed the new driver. I deleted the printer in System Preferences and re-added it and then the correct driver version was shown. I wonder if you must do this or the existing printer doesn't use the new driver.
ReplyDeleteOh and by the way, have been enjoying your blog for sometime, keep up the good posts! (bought a 7900 about 10 months ago myself).
DeleteThanks, Joel. I'm glad you're enjoying my occasional rants.
DeleteWhether installing a new driver version "over" an existing installation really uses the new driver is the obvious question. I've yet to find anything in the Mac's system or other logs that associates a driver version with a print job. I have, however, found several additional places within the many pieces of Epson software on this system that shows "9.04" as the version. It's as if Epson's components know which version is in use, but the OS isn't so sure.
As mentioned, I'll have a clean install of 9.04, or whatever's current at the time, when I have time to finish building up my 10.8.x drive.
Regards,
--Jay