Well I was quick to criticise, so praise where it's due. I called Xerox and an engineer was with me inside two hours who brought the printer back to life with no fuss.
He did say that Xerox will book a tech to come out and do software upgrades if required, so there's no need real for owners to take the risk of getting it wrong.
He also said that sometimes trying to apply the wrong firmware can be terminally fatal, so for anyone reading this, take special care – and perhaps consider whether a firmware upgrade is strictly necessary. If it isn't broken, why fix it?
Anyway, I'm delighted our new printer is working again (and my boss is even more delighted) – and as a parting thought, I suggest Xerox should as a matter of urgency edit this bizarrely complacent wording in the Versalink firmware installation instructions:
"Before upgrading to the new firmware 61.01 and higher, you must be sure the device has a version that can read the encrypted files. If you attempt to install the encrypted file on a version older than the bridge release, it will fail and you will need to power the device off and back on to recover."
Maybe it could be changed to something like:
"Before upgrading to the new firmware 61.01 and higher, you must be sure the device has a version that can read the encrypted files. If you attempt to install the encrypted file on a version older than the bridge release, it will fail and could result in permanent fatal damage to your printer. At the very least, it will require a technician to call out and recover the printer."
