Bit the bullet and bought a $20 chinese print server for my parents USB printer. Came with a CD that runs a detection and setup utility for installing the printer via the print server. It runs right off the CD.
Works flawlessly on all the systems running OS X, XP and Vista. Literally five clicks.
The exception is a computer in the art room. It runs XP home with a wireless USB dongle. You run the utility, it sees the server and printer, it installs and configures the printer driver, just like on every other machine but will not talk to the printer. All jobs fail.
To see if it was dropping packets I plugged in my JetDirect equipped LaserJet 4 and set that up and fired off a test page. It worked.
Okay, so it can print to one networked printer but not another and this is the only computer in the house which is having this problem. Printer settings between similar XP systems are identical and this system remains problematic. The only thing special about how the computer talks to the print server as opposed to the JetDirect is that it uses the LPR protocol.
Works flawlessly on all the systems running OS X, XP and Vista. Literally five clicks.
The exception is a computer in the art room. It runs XP home with a wireless USB dongle. You run the utility, it sees the server and printer, it installs and configures the printer driver, just like on every other machine but will not talk to the printer. All jobs fail.
To see if it was dropping packets I plugged in my JetDirect equipped LaserJet 4 and set that up and fired off a test page. It worked.
Okay, so it can print to one networked printer but not another and this is the only computer in the house which is having this problem. Printer settings between similar XP systems are identical and this system remains problematic. The only thing special about how the computer talks to the print server as opposed to the JetDirect is that it uses the LPR protocol.
_________________
<-------- A very happy forum member.