HP printers come with a security feature called cartridge protection. This feature changes the memory inside the cartridges in such a way that they can only be used on your printer. Suppose someone steals them from your printer with the intent of using them in their own printer of the same model, the cartridges simply won’t work on their printer because they were protected.
However, if you want to be able to use the same cartridges in several printers back and forth, then you should disable this feature. When you disable this feature, already installed cartridges stay protected, but it won’t protect any new cartridges that you install in the future.
Here is how you can disable cartridge protection in HP 410 All-in-one Inkjet Wireless Printer:
- Enable WiFi-Direct on your HP 410 printer by pressing the respective button on the printer panel.
- On your PC, connect to the WiFI network created by your HP 410 printer. Usually it is shown as DIRECT-A6-HP Ink Tank Wireless. The default password (not PIN code) for connecting to this wireless network is 12345678.
- Once you have connected to the WiFi Direct on your PC, open a web browser and visit http://192.168.223.1 which is the embedded web server interface for your printer.
- On the web interface for the printer select the Settings section.
- Select Preferences, and then HP Cartridge Protection.
- Choose Disable HP Cartridge Protection and then click on the Apply button.
After you have disabled cartridge protection for your printer, any new cartridges you install will stay unprotected. However the previously installed cartridges will continue to stay protected because once a cartridge is protected, the protection cannot be removed even by changing the printer settings.
When you are dealing with HP Ink Tank printers, the replacement of cartridges is not really a concern because of the huge ink tanks. The only thing you have to do is refill the tanks when they become empty. This is why keeping the cartridge protection enabled might be useful if you think theft could be an issue.