Developer Forum

I have an HP DeskJet 812C that has been hooked up to my Windows 98SE
computer for MANY years and shared with Windows XP without incident.

My Windows XP machine died a few months ago, and I replaced it with a
computer running Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium. I also installed
Windows XP Pro under Virtual PC on the Vista computer for those time
when I need to log in to the company domain via VPN.

I've had no problems with the share under the virtual machine, but
every time I want to print with Windows Vista, I have to reinstall the
printer. Visa reports the printer is "offline" and merely holds the
document in queue. I can't connect to the printer, and the "use
printer online" option does nothing.

How do I fix this so that the printer works all the time? It only
seems to happen after both computers have been switched off and
leaving them on is NOT an option. I turn the comptuers off before
going to bed except about once a month when i defragment the win98
machine. It can't be a physical problem and I doubt it's a problem on
the 98 end because the virtual machine on the same computer using the
same hardware has no problems printing to the DeskJet 812C. This is
Virtual PC running Windows XP Pro under Vista Home Premium, yet i t
has no problems printing. Ditto when I tried installing 98 on a
virtual machine. It had no problem printing.


I might be setting things up wrong, as it was slightly different from
how I recall doing it in XP. Could somebody please give me a step-by-
step walkthrough on how to set up a printer shared by win98 in Vista?
The WIn98 machine does NOT have Vista 64 drivers (or XP drivers) so I
usually need to print to a port and use the Microsoft provided HP
Deskjet 810/812C driver to do the rendering client-side.

Alternately, could somebody tell me how to make a batch file or script
to automatically remove the old printer & port and create new ones so
I can simply pin it to the start menu and click it before printing?