HP Envy 4500 Wireless All-in-One Color Photo Printer, HP Instant Ink or Amazon Dash Replenishment Ready (A9T80A)

This review is written to explain to Linux users how to use the HP Envy 4500 to it's full potential, including scanning. Although some portions of it might apply to Windows, it is not targeted to that OS. There are 2 issues you need to understand about the Envy 4500 on Linux. The first is that there you should not use the hp-toolbox or any other front end for scanning *yet* but that probably will be fixed anytime. The second problem involves a squabble between HP and the Linux developers involving potential security issues. Is there a possible security issue? Yes. More on that later, but the security risk is not insurmountable. ** Printing under Linux on a properly configured HP printer, including the Envy 4500, has not been an issue for a long time now so I am focusing on scanning. If you Google the "HP Envy and scan problems" you will see that there are problems which the old solutions cannot solve. ** Don't despair you can get full functionality printing/scanning with the HP Envy models under Linux if you follow the steps in this review and this is one awsome printer for the money and the ink cartridges cost less the previous models. Personally I signed up for ink cartridges to be shipped automatically (the 2.99 monthly option for 50 pages per month was best for me). This option is available for the HP Envy printers and as long as I stay within my limits that amounts to being able to print 50 pages per month of any kind for about $36 per year in ink costs; more pages per month are available if you need them. ** NOTE: All the Linux front ends such as the hp-toolbox, XSane, Kooka, Scanlite, AcquireImages, Simple Scan etc. are just that; front ends. All front ends depend on a back end that is transparent to the user which *MUST* have a driver compatible with the printer in question. The fact is there is no driver yet that will *initiate* a scan from the PC with consistent results. Low resolution scans sometimes complete, but all high resolution scans will hang or disable something and the results are not predictable. No matter how many times you use Yast2 to configure a printer or which of the large number of drivers you choose, initiating a scan from your Linux box will be problematic. However, very soon I expect to see a driver in the list for the Envy 4500. UPDATE TO THIS NOTE TO LINUX USERS: Since I wrote this review, a driver specifically for the Envy 4500 series has been released. I haven't checked other distributions but opensuse 13.2 installs the drivers by default and the Yast2 printer set-up has a button to launch the HP software included in the dialogue when you click the Add printer button. You can check for the presence of the drivers by running the Yast2 Software Management module and searching for "hplip". You should see hplip-hpijs - Only plain printing with HPLIP printer and the driver for scanning (hplip-sane) already installed unless you are running an older distribution. The integrated print, scan, fax is also available through Software Management now; glad to see opensuse abandoned the questionable practice of blocking the installation of HPLIP in this context without any informational message. Downloading the package from HP was not such a big deal, but my customary practice has always been to install printers using yast and they wasted a few hours of my time before I stumbled across the reason in a suse blog. ** There is confusion about what it means in the documentation and on the web to "Scan to PC". Scan to PC does not mean the same thing as "PC initiated scan". There is a temporary problem *initiating* a scan from the PC through *any* software front end when connecting to the Envy 4500; the proper driver does not exist yet. You can scan comfortably using the HP Envy 4500 built in web server user interface. **Hewlett Packard (much to their credit) is adding tools and drivers for the Linux OS in a very timely manner. It only takes about 1 or 2 days to write a driver for a specific printer but then it must be tested before release. In the past, they followed the lead of all exclusively Windows software developers, i.e. "We do not support Linux". I have now retired my aging HP Photosmart C4640 and am using exclusively a new HP Envy 4500 on OpenSuse 13.1 and running the latest release of the HPLIP containg hp-toolbox and other useful utilities, version 3.14.10 as of 10/28/2014. More on installing HPLIP at the bottom. Remember first of all that you *cannot initiate* a scan from your Linux box using the hp-toolbox or any other front end at this time. You *must* use the printers built in web interface to scan *TO* the PC. I do expect that to change any day now, but if you try it now you will get something along the lines of "Error during read: Error during device I/O." Depending on the settings you were using it might be a "cannot connect" message. This will probably be followed by most of the functionality icons disappearing from the Actions tab and possibly something worse; maybe even a system hang. I have never had a problem initiating a print from the Linux box. The only thing you cannot do is initiate a scan using the hp-toolbox from the PC. You *can* initiate a scan by using the built in web server on the Envy 4500 going TO the PC. You must set the printer up first of course, but the web server front end is attractive, intuitive and fully functional. You can get some good information from the site hplipopensource dot com. You can also get some outdated advice; more on that later. ** First, set up your printer from the front panel. I enabled the wireless connectivety first. Personally I don't like to maintain static ips so I have configured my wifi router to be a DHCP server with a narrow range of ips; the ip pool is adequate for our cell phones, laptops and now this printer. For a secured wifi router you will need to know your pass phrase so if you have forgotten it better find it. From the printers home menu use down arrow to Tools, press OK and down arrow to Printer status report; a printed page will include Connectivety settings which will show your printers url (ip address). If there is no ip address the printer is not connected to your network and this problem must be addressed before proceeding. I am not going to reveal my network info, so the ips in this review are examples. If you are installing a new wifi router set that up first. Use a range of ips for the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) from the non-routable ip addresses beginning with 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x with an appropriate mask (Example: 255.255.255.0 for the 192.168.1.x ips). Follow the manufacturers documentation carefully. It takes a few moments for the Envy 4500 to find the wifi server; when it does the blue light on the front panel will stop blinking and burn steady. Another advantage of DHCP is that you will not knock off all your users like when you change a static ip address. Speaking of getting knocked off the network, if you change the name of the printer to something more descriptive you will get knocked off until you power the printer off and on which allows it to reconnect to the wifi. Now that you are on the network via the wifi, go ahead and ping the printer from the Linux box to assure the PC has access to the wifi. If not, resolve that issue first. To make this easier to do print the Envy 4500 status from the front panel. Use the down arrow to select Tools (not visible without scrolling). Hit OK and scroll down to Printer Status Report and hit OK again. Example: Let's assume the page printed out showed your printers ip address to be 192.168.1.109 (for example) under the Connectivety heading on the right side. Ping the printer from a Terminal on the Linux box to assure connectivety of the PC to the same network. PING (Packet InterNet Groper) the printer now: If you cannot ping, su root (you must have the root pw) and try again. You should see something similar to the following. Break out of the ping loop using ^C (hold down control press c) since it does not stop after sampling 4 pings like it does under Windows. linuxBoxName:/home/yourUserName # ping 192.168.1.109 PING 192.168.1.109 (192.168.1.109) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 192.168.1.109: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=91.2 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.109: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=21.0 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.109: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=19.7 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.109: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=1000 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.109: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=34.3 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.109: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=32.8 ms ^C --- 192.168.1.109 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5005ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 19.770/199.952/1000.517/358.831 ms, pipe 2 If the above went well, the printer is connected, so open a web browser on your PC and enter "http://192.168.1.109" (substitute the ip on your status report for 192.168.1.109) in the address bar and you should see the web based set up screen. ** NOTE: It is from the set up screen served by the HP Envy 4500 built in web server that you can configure the options you probably have read about. Including such goodies as printing from your smart phone as long as it has access to your wifi network. ** I am not going to duplicate HP documentation; play with the web based UI and you will find it intuitive. The built in administrator name is "admin". You should enter the admin password first and don't lose it. Remember if you change the printer name you must power off/on to reconnect to the wifi doing the DHCP. ** NOTE: I reinstalled SAMBA on my Linux box just so I could share a newly created folder for the Envy 4500 to scan to using a guide on hplipopensource dot com. There is no longer an option on web UI to specify a shared folder (residing on the PC) on the printer; instead when I changed the name of the printer it *automatically* created a folder on the PC based on the printer name and the Linux $USER/$GROUP environment variables (a simple matter with the root password entered in the hp-install run) so it is advisable to run hp-install logged on as the user who will use the printer most from the console where the USB is plugged. Now I will probably uninstall SAMBA since the MS machinery is diminishing on my network; just to keep things clean. **Once you have completed the install and logged into the built in web server as admin everything is seamless. You can scan without the problems associated with a PC initiated scan and when the scan completes you save the results in a separate step by RIGHT clicking on the scanned image. In this folder on the PC is an html page: file:///home/yourUserName/YourPrinterName/HP ENVY 4500 e-All-in-One Printer series.html with an accompanying folder named HP ENVY 4500 e-All-in-One Printer series_files such as you would expect when saving an html page to the local PC. Don't bother click on the html page you will just get an aborted html page load in your browser with an "Internal error" notification. Connect using this method: "http://192.168.1.109" (substitute the ip on your status report for 192.168.1.109) in the address bar of your browser. ** What was somewhat of a surprise is that not only the images used to display this html page reside in the html files folder but also the images I scan to the PC. Perhaps I will play around with that insignificant glitch later; for now I am happy. ** About that contest of wills between OpenSuse and HP (Started by OpenSuse) over security. The versions of HPLIP older than 3.14.10 (including 3.14.6) included a version tab in the hp-toolbox which would inform you if a newer version was available and instruct you to click to update. Don't bother, it will only open a blank terminal window and *do nothing*. The reason for this is that OpenSuse discovered the HPLIP install program was asking for the root password and opening a port in the firewall. I admit this is a security concern for many people, but IMHO OpenSuse is out of line in simply blocking the upgrade attempt and leaving the user to wonder from whence did the momentary blank terminal window come from and why. It is very easy to code a simple message stating that the "OpenSuse developers have blocked this web install due to security concerns." Perhaps even a link to the "bug" report discussing this; dispelling confusion is always a good thing. Anyway, we all know that we create security risks by opening ports in the firewall for many other applications and these actions probably require root access on most systems in use. ** You cannot install an up to date HPLIP version using Yast->Software Management period; it is being filtered. For now, you can download a tarball (*.tar.gz) or a *.run file and unzip and install by running the hp-install program. **ANOTHER_GOTCHA: OpenSuse will sometimes give you an erroneos Error that HPLIP is NOT installed when you are running an HPLIP version later than the one you can pull up in Yast using a search under Software Management. Come on guys, give your users a break. ** HPLIP is rapidly evolving and frequent updates are likely. It contains many useful utilities such as hp-setup, hp-doctor and hp-plugin. In fact if you decide to install HPLIP (or upgrade it) you should first run hp-setup and make a special note of any required dependencies that are needed. Details of this operation are beyond the scope of a product review. To Summarize: The HP Envy 4500 is a really fine printer and works very well under Linux with a little preparation. Great buy and great functionality. By signing with HP to have the ink shipped to your house you get cartridges that hold more ink with free shipping at about half price. Recommended.

I bought this to replace a bigger more elaborate HP printer that I have had for approximately 5 years. The printer still worked in every way except for it wouldn't print pictures on photo paper, just regular paper, apparently the "soft ware" was no longer able to send the correct command to my printer anymore. Since my HP was no longer under warranty it would be more expensive to fix it than to just buy a new printer. I wanted to get a new printer but didn't want to spend a lot. I had seen this one on QVC for $99.99 plus $10 shipping. The printer sounded/looked great but I decide to come to Amazon to see if they sold it cheaper and plus because I trust Amazon, never been lead astray by them... EVER (hope I didn't just jinx it, LOL)! Amazon did sell it cheaper, from a 3rd party seller, and since I had a $30 GC that I received for my b-day I decided, "why not?" I am so happy I bought this printer! I love the quality of the photos and the scanner bed is a bit bigger than my old printer which is a plus since I scrapbook and like to scan my pages! I still have to make 2 scans and stitch my pages together w/ my scan-and-stitch soft wear, but the little bit of extra room makes a difference! The printer is smaller than the usual big bulky all-in-ones! In fact it fits on top of my old one, w/ room on top to spare! I still have my old one because I have a lot of ink still not used so I will use the old one for the functions that still work until my ink runs out. The people who complained about it jamming must not have put the paper in correctly. I say this because when I first inserted my paper it jammed... I was like "uh-oh", but then I realized I inserted it incorrectly and now that I know how to insert it, it has worked flawlessly. I also joined the HP ink service. I chose the lowest one: $2.99 for 50 pages/month. I don't print that many pages a month, but I figure it's still cheaper than paying for the ink. You figure if I pay $2.99 a month for 12 months I'm only paying $35.88 for ink. Even if I don't use all my pages, I'm still spending less on ink than if I go buy the ink myself at $65 a pop! I am not one to leave reviews very often, almost never, but I really like this printer and wanted to let people know in case they are worried about the cheap price...cuz I know I was when I initially purchased it!

Set up is easy. Paper shown at the bottom of the printer can be hidden by closing the small door which you can see in the pictures underneath the paper. That's actually hinged. The paper doesn't have to be removed to close it. It bends upward a bit as the door closes. Caution though, the machine will still try to print with the door closed and wad up the paper as it tries to eject it. That can then cause interference with the printer head. You can leave the door open a half inch or so and all is well. Or just remember to open it before you print. Print quality seems quite good for documents, but not quite as good for photos as the Kodak it replaced. Not bad, though, on photo paper. Certainly acceptable for most purposes. When using photo paper, remove the regular printer paper from the tray. One "con" thus far: the document scans, even at just 300 dpi and "file size" slide all the way to the "small" side produces files about 400K per page, even for simple b&w docs. Going to 200 dpi results in too much loss of detail. I can't imagine how big a 1200 dpi, "large" file could be. 4 meg a page maybe? Some software inside the printer needs some tweaking. Not a "big" enough issue to prevent purchasing the printer is you're considering it. Some reviewers said the printer is noisy. I don't know what they're used to, but it's perhaps the quietest ink jet we've owned. When it's not printing, it's completely quiet of course. When it's commanded on, it's power up sequence is fairly quick and not loud enough to be an issue for us. The actual printing is not excessively noisy either. Again, all in all, our quietest ink jet of the 5 we've owned over the years. On a par with the Brother laser; maybe even a bit quieter. From cold standby to printed page, about 30 seconds, I'm guessing. Not bad. Duplexing thus far has worked smoothly. Signed up for e-ink. No big deal to do. Charged my credit card $1, then promptly sent us a set of ink cartridges! Now, we've printed only about a dozen pages, so it appears that the e-ink plan is to give you your next set of cartridges ahead of time. I thought that the printer would connect to HP when the ink became low and trigger the replacements to be sent. BTW, we signed up for the 50 pages per month option, the smallest/cheapest one. We have a Brother laser that does the grunt B&W printing work for us.

I was a little hesitant on purchasing this printer at first. I really wanted to get one that had an SD card reader built in. I was used to that, and used it often on my Kodak ESP7. But since I am a Mac user, there is no drivers or updates available for Maverick or Yosemite since Kodak technically does not exist anymore. I searched and searched the web for one, but alas, I was just left with an oversized scanner and a copier, and a printer that just taunted me!!! Once i discovered that i am not the only one, I gave in. I needed a new printer. I Ended up choosing this one for a few reasons. First the cost of the ink. One of the cheapest replacement out there, plus if you print a lot like I do, they have a nifty ink cartage replace and recycling program that is very very affordable and the way to go if you print a ton like I do. Bonus points because the printer will automatically tell HP to send more when it runs low. If you are just going to use it to print a few pictures and documents now and then, I don't really recommend it, you will end up paying more in the long run. Second was other reviews on the ease of wireless/wifi set up!!! After my Kodak , which was supposed to be wireless/wifi, but it never worked at all, so again i was skeptical. I was better than I ever thought. I printed sitting in the basement while my printer is on the 3rd floor. Thats not a norm for me, and not something I will really use, but I just wanted to find out the range. As long as both your computer and printer are connected to the same router, and both have at least 30% signal strength (not sure if that is official, but thats where I was at on my laptop when i printed), you will be good to go. And finally, I wanted to get a printer that I knew is going to last, or at least not become a paperweight before it stops working. Now to some of the other features. Pictures print out quiet nicely and fast!!! Same goes for documents. Printing from a smartphone is a piece of cake. I didn't need to download an app to print, but it definitely makes it easier if you want to change a few settings before you do. If you have an IPhone/IPad, The one i use is called HP AiO Remote. Its free in the app store and that too was also easy to set up. It was done in less that 5 min. Once I have it longer and If I find things i don't like, I'll update this. But as of now, having if for a few days, and testing the limits on it extensively, I am Beyond happy with it. Oh and as far as the SD card reader goes, there is no need for it. I no longer feel that its a necessity, and now wonder why I really wanted to have it on the printer in the first place

I never write reviews but for how horrible of a experience I've had with this product, I can't help but warn others (especially students with macs) about it. I have had this printer for a year. And although it worked absolutely great in the beginning, it all went south AFTER I updated my computer in January. Now the wireless feature DOES NOT WORK ANYMORE except for the two times I re-downloaded the software and got it to work. But when I tried doing it a third time, it would no longer sync to my computer (despite it being on the same network/wifi). NOW I have a USB cable that worked well in the beginning but AGAIN, my printer stopped doing basic things like printing black/white instead of color, printing double-sided, etc. despite the settings I put into word, adobe, etc. every time. After… 1) spending an hour at a time trying to sync my computer to the printer EVERY single time I wanted to print something 2) spending even more time trying to troubleshoot the printer in every single way possible provided by their website 3) basically repeating all the troubleshooting with customer service on the phone I'm left with the option of either 1) having to send my printer in and wait weeks to get a response 2) getting a new printer The amount of work you have to do to get this printer to work is incredibly frustrating and not worth anyones time. And to add to it, customer service has been another waste of time because what it comes down to is you having to do more work and be more inconvenienced just to get your problem fixed. I can assure you that once my exams are over, I'm going to just buy a new one because the unreliability of the software and the ENORMOUS amount of time I've wasted trying to get this to work (by me, 2 other classmates, and whatever customer service tried to accomplish) is going to just leave you frustrated and at the same point you left off with—buying a new printer (probably from another company). *** I apologize in advance for any typos.

Just received this today and have only printed 6 pages, but so far so good! The set-up was a little complicated for a non-techie person, but I managed to get the printer set up wirelessly and installed the necessary software on my 2 laptop computers in slightly less than 1 hour. One of my laptops is my work laptop which has ridiculously cumbersome security and firewall stuff on it, so that is what gave me most of my problems. Setting up the printer and my home laptop (which is likely what most people will do) was only about 1/2 hour. I love that this is wireless. I have the printer hidden away in another room in the house, and can print from my laptop which is at my dining table. I love that this also scans and copies. The ink cartridges that came with the printer are the standard 61 cartridges; I've ordered the 61XL to have on hand once these cartridges run out. There's also an option during the set-up to create an HP Connected account which allows you to create an email address for your printer. You can then email documents to your printer's email address and the printer will print out your document! I emailed a PDF to my printer and it printed out - amazing! The printer is 'web connected' and it will alert you when updates are available to improve the printer's performance. You can also sign up for "instant ink", which your printer detects when your ink is running low and alerts HP to mail you new ink cartridges. Wow, is this a brave new world or what?! :-) You can also connect your printer physically to your computer via a USB cable, but you'd have to buy the USB cable separately. Putting in the ink cartridges was a breeze! It's been a while since I've owned a printer (7 years or so), and I remember my previous printer (another brand) was a bear trying to get the cartridges in. The little window on the printer is easily viewable by my 53 year old eyeballs, and the keys/buttons are pretty easy to use. It's mostly fairly intuitive, though it took me a few moments to figure out how to enter capital letters and numbers while I was trying to key in the password for my wireless (click the button next to "abc" to switch it to "ABC", click again to switch to "123"). I am very happy with this product for the price I paid -- it seems like I've gotten good value for my money. I guess the only thing I'm a little leery about is this thing was made in China and what with its wireless and "web connected" features, I just hope my data is safe. LOL, half joking here. My data's probably already out there in the ethernet or dark web already! :-)

DON'T IGNORE THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS!! I rarely write a review, but this printer warrants one. I have had trouble-free printing with other HP printers for many years and was hoping for the same kind of experience with the Envy 4500. Unfortunately, not so with this one, which I've owned for several months. First, the wireless connectivity, although easy to set up, was only intermittently successful in allowing for wireless printing via my mac computers. I decided that was not a big enough problem to warrant the inevitable time-consuming hassle of a support interaction with HP, so just hooked it up USB. That tied it to only one computer, but it was acceptable for our needs. It printed fine as a wired printer, even doing the 2 sided printing without problems. But recently, it began spewing out letter sized paper along with a message "Paper Too Short...", and I couldn't get it to print anything. I did all the measures listed in web-based support without help. Finally bit the bullet and called HP (still under warranty) and spent 108 minutes going through repeated useless steps, some of which I'd already tried, being transferred not once, not twice, but 3 times. Ultimately, they decided to replace the unit. Had I known about the time investment, I really think I would have just thrown the plastic piece of s___ into the trash and gone with a trusted Canon or Epson, which I've also used in my fine art photography work. I'm worried that the replacement will have problems, too, but am open to trying it. I'll try to remember to write a followup after I've had the new one for a couple of months. ADDENDUM: Originally gave this printer a terrible review (above) after it cost me almost 2 hours on tech support line to get a vital problem resolved. Now I have had its replacement for many months and it has functioned very well ever since. I am able to use the wi-fi connectivity to print from multiple devices in my home. The print quality is excellent for a printer of this price. The copier and scanner work well. I have no idea what percentage of these printers malfunction, but now I have a good one and I'm happy with HP again. SECOND ADDENDUM: Now I’ve owned the printer for more than 3 years. Working perfectly all this time. I increased my rating to 5 stars.

This printer is pretty good, and a definite upgrade from what I had been using. The color reproduction wasn't quite to my liking, but I'm also not printing photographs. I simply adjusted the settings in Photoshop so that Photoshop chooses the colors and the printer itself does not. This allows for pastel and faded colors and works pretty well for the few things I've tested with it. For regular printing needs it's a breeze, however using 120lb glossy cardstock absolutely was not an option. I had hoped that because this was a photo-printer it might take thicker papers easier, but the paper I was testing just wasn't going to cut it. It might work with 110lb, and probably 100lb cardstocks, but I haven't had a chance to test that yet. It prints pretty quickly, the wireless connection is easy to set up, and it looks very sleek. I haven't attempted to print anything from my phone, don't really need to, but with how quickly it connected to my computer I'm sure it would be easy to set up. The only real problem I have is that it doesn't like to print multiples of something the first time around, which is very frustrating. If I need 5 copies of something and the printer is currently set to make 1 print I will change the number to 5, hit print, and still only get 1. After changing the number of copies to 4 then, it will print 5. I have no idea how to make it print the correct number the first time, or whether it's just an issue because I'm printing from Photoshop and not Word or something similar. Also, after every few prints this HP "free gift" thing pops up and is just very annoying. I don't know how to disable that, and I've tried to get the gift and to cancel it and no matter what it keeps coming up after every few prints I make. The gift, by the way, is just some free printable activity sheets and hardly anything thrilling. Other than these few software issues, it's a pretty good printer and is suitable for standard tasks and simple photo prints with regular printer-friendly photo paper.

品質が全くダメだな！使うものとならない！ 白黒印刷でも出来ず、スピードが遅いすぎる。

Already own another HP Envy 4500 Wireless All-in-One Photo Copier Printer. We are extremely pleased with the ease and reliability of the printer. Also, these printers use the HP 61 Black and Tri Colour Ink Refills which last a super long time. Great shipping. 5 star rating.

Adjunto una copia del aspecto de la página cuando intento imprimir el "Printer Status Report".

This is truly a great printer. I have owned several cannon printers and they all die and make too much noise, This one not only has a nice design but it funtions without hiccups just as good. I've had for about a year now and I refill the ink myself also just fine :)

I found it easy to set up and connect to our wifi and the first day of printing and scanning had no issues. But it was too big for my desk (it is a beast; not compact by any means) so I packed it up and put it in the closet. Two months later I take it out, and now it can't print a single page without cutting off the tops from various lines of text. I tried everything in HP's troubleshooting article and their support software and my color ink cartridge is down to 75% just from printing test and alignment pages. I finally fixed it by switching from Normal to Best printing mode (a Windows setting). Now it no longer cuts lines in half. Instead it gets halfway through every 2nd or 3rd page then just stops printing and spits the paper out with the bottom half blank. I have to carefully inspect every page that comes out of it. Six months of no printing later, and now the color is not printing at all - it isn't greyscale; instead the bits that should have been printed by the color cartridge are just not printed at all, even though ink levels are fine. I've only used this printer a dozen times in a year and it's been a pain in the butt every single time. I'm just about ready to take a baseball bat to this thing, Office Space style.