KJC,
I've been struggling with this, two Canon MP610s and two MP780s. I would
first ask whether your processor and chipset are from Intel, NVidia, or AMD?
Shouldn't make a difference should it but it does. If you look at the
Microsoft patches for USB problems you'll see that the support is bifurcated.
Take a look in \Windows\inf. If you don't have a dozen or more information
files (.inf) with labels beginning with "usb...", usb.inf, usbprint.inf, ...
no usb printers will install.
These files provide the essential context for usb printers, and include the
pointers to generic drivers used by most usb printers. I'm a little
surprised that Microsoft has no utility to validate installations, but often,
such tools exist internally and have not been tested or packaged for
distribution. The "inf" files I've looked for (if you have a working
printer, just print a test page from the General window when you check the
properties of the printer and you'll find a list of the files necessary for
the support of the printer. I found every file required by Vista for the
support of my Canon and Epson printers. They simply had not been copied to
the directories in the seach path for installation of the drivers. I
guarantee that Microsoft is full of engineers and technicians who could
troubleshoot this problem, and he or she would have access to the intallation
procedures to see where things are going wrong. But the simple fact that it
works in AMD and not on Intel points to management problems (or engineering
resource limitations) with one or the other, or both companies.
All my devices were fine on older operating systems. All my Vista
installations are new, with SP1 installed, so I can't say that this was
broken is pre-SP1 Vista. I wanted a first service pak before using Vista for
development. Other than the usb print drivers, Vista seems like a valuable
upgrade, full of interesting ideas. We need some new machines so I'm buying
AMD to replace some aging Intel boxes. I doubt that there is any need to
replace drivers, and am betting on a fix in the plug and play sequence for
Intel composite usb devices one of these days.
