Epson Stylus Color 880 Windows 10 (1709) – How to make it work
If you use a Epson Stylus Color 880 printer, it may be the case that you cannot use it on your Windows 10 computer.
Typical symptoms of this issue are that it will appear as a “USB Printer” within the “Printers” section of Windows 10, but may actually appear as “Epson Stylus Color 880” in Device Manager.
The problem is that Windows 10 (especially 1709) does not recognize the driver and therefore cannot get the printer to work.
The solution is to make sure that Windows 10 can run the driver, which means downloading the most suitable one from the Internet or removing errors and other system problems. Actually, this is relatively simple, as explained below…
Cause
The reason for the issue is a difference in the way Windows 10 (1709) works with the underlying system drivers.
Some of the older drivers (written by hardware manufacturers) don’t work with the new hardware / API IO within the system, leaving Windows unable to manage any of the underlying issues you may have.
To make sure this isn’t a problem, you need to make sure you’re using a compatible driver, or at least a driver that works with the way Windows version 1709 works. To do this, you need to make sure that you can get an effectively working version of the driver.
Solution
To resolve the issue, Microsoft has worked to resolve any of the underlying issues that have been causing conflicts, primarily by offering a new “Windows 10 Compatible Driver Package 1709” which is a manual update to the drivers required to run the Epson Stylus Color 880.
By going to Microsoft’s “download catalog” and typing “epson stylus color 880” in the search box, you will see a number of packages that you can download. At the bottom of the list should be the “compatibility” package, which if you download it, you’ll be able to run the installer.
When running the installer, please restart your system and then make sure that Windows can load the printer as before. If you can’t do this, you need to make sure you can get the most out of the app, which is done by cleaning up any potentially corrupt settings your system might have.