how to Print via USB with non USB (Serial port) Printer

Hello,

My new computer only has USB ports and one of my printers is so old, it is
not USB

I have acquired a cable which apparently is idiot proof - not so!

The cable fits the printer and the computer but should I have some drivers
or something else to load?

No drivers or software came with the cable and I wrongly assumed that i only
had to plug it in to make it work.

Help please would be appreciated


TIA

 

since your printer is essentially Parallel you should be able to load the
drivers for the printer and select the usb port as the print location in the
driver setup. Without more info on the printer though that's about all I can
guess. Your printer will not be automatically detected as a usb device since
it is not really usb.

 

Thanks for the response

The printer is a Hewlett Packard Deskjet 510

I have tried loading the drivers and have selected a USB port (tried
several) but nothing works

I simply get a message saying "error"

 

Even when printing a test page?

Unplug the printer from the computer

Check to make sure you only have one instance of the printer installed,
remove all the drivers so no printers are shown in the printers/faxes window
(at least none related to the Deskjet)

If you are familiar with the registry remove the usb reference for the
printer in regedit (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB)
there will be several hardware items under this tree starting with vid_,
expand the tree and look on the right side for your deskjet, remove any you
find. If you are not sure leave it installed (better safe than sorry), or if
you are not sure about regedit dont use it, you can cause serious problems
if you inadvertantly delete something.

Restart and plug the printer back into the computer (it should be recognized
by XP if all the registry entries have been removed)
When XP tries to auto install cancel the setup

Reinstall the drivers (download the latest for your OS (XP)) from www.hp.com
Follow the prompts for the HP setup

Here is a link to HP that has other setup info if you are interested:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...name=bpd09005&lang=en&cc=usdocs/bud09185.html

Hope this helps

 

Many thanks for the info

I shall try what you suggest

(Yes, the message was appearing when trying to print a test page)

Cheers

 

When I looked via regedit I found no references at all to my printer
(Deskjet 510)
My other printers were visible but not this one

I did find 4 instances of a "Bencent IEEE1284 Printer Cable (Device Desc -
USB Printing support)

Even using the FIND facility (CTRL+F) failed to locate any reference to my
printer

I shall locate the drivers you referred to and load them, and see what
happens

Cheers


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If that is the cable you are using to connect your printer then it would be
safe to remove those entries. That cable is on the HCL for XP so it should
be recognized again when re-connected. Whichever port (usb) the cable shows
up on is the port you should select for your printer