how to diagnose a printer problem?

[Job Miller]

The only way I can print anything with any printer from my desktop
running win2k, is by deleting the ECP port, and letting it rediscover
the port and the attached printer. The printers won't discover
themselves without first deleting the ECP port and letting it
rediscover the port and printer.

As soon as I reboot though, the printer(either a canon or an HP)
doen't print anymore.

Although documents sent to the printer appear in the print queue, and
than disappear as if they are printed, a printer dialog appears
indicating a communication problem.

any ideas how to diagnose this. The temporary workaround of just
deleting the ECP port every time I reboot and letting it go through
the rediscovery thing is kind of annoying.

 

[Chuck]

I'd disconnect the printer from the parallel port first. Then uninstall the
printer drivers. Reboot.
Then uninstall the ECP driver. Reboot. Allow the ECP port driver to
reinstall. Reboot.
Install the correct printer driver, preferably by downloading the latest
from the mfrs web site instead of using a builtin windows driver. Follow
the driver install instructions. All this should be accomplished from the
admin log in.

It sounds like something in the registry is not as it should be. In an
extreme case manual editing may be necessary.
The multiple reboot sequence allows the registry to update more or less one
step at a time. It's possible to make copies of the registry thru the
process and compare them to see what areas are changing.

 

[Guest]

change the driver to standart lpt1 port instead of the
enhanced version.