M
Mike S.
My wife just upgraded to a new Toshiba laptop and we moved her 1250W to it
from her old machine. It is connected to the parallel port. I downloaded
the current WinXP drivers from the QMS-Minolta site and she had been
happily printing without problems for the last week.
I have visited Windows Update and, one at a time, been installing post-SP1
patches. The last one I installed, if memory serves, was the latest
Microsoft DCOM bugfix/security package. IIRC the listing for this patch
said that it could NOT be uninstalled, and sadly I did not create a
restore point immediately before installing it.
Some time later I tried to print and found a status message in the tray
that the job was stalled. The Minolta status monitor said that there was a
mismatch, communication problem, or bad cable. Knowing that the hardware
had not changed, I suspected a drive issue and reinstalled the driver.
That fixed the printer issue ... until the next reboot when jobs stalled
with the same error message. I tried switching the printer port from ECP
(where it had been at the time of the original, working install) to
bidirectional and back without improvement. Playing with the settings, I
discovered something _REALLY_ weird:
If I go to the OS' "properties page" for this printer, under the PORTS
tab, and select something _other_ than LPT1:, clicked APPLY, and then
went _back_ to reselect LPT1:, the printer works fine for the rest of that
session ... until I reboot.
Something has changed the way the os communicates with the printer via
the parallel port. I have a workaround, but would like to fix it
permanently ... does this ring a bell with anyone?
[By the way, if I sacrifice a USB port and connect the printer that way,
all is well for as long as I care to try. But I'd _really_ like to use
that parallel port as before...]
from her old machine. It is connected to the parallel port. I downloaded
the current WinXP drivers from the QMS-Minolta site and she had been
happily printing without problems for the last week.
I have visited Windows Update and, one at a time, been installing post-SP1
patches. The last one I installed, if memory serves, was the latest
Microsoft DCOM bugfix/security package. IIRC the listing for this patch
said that it could NOT be uninstalled, and sadly I did not create a
restore point immediately before installing it.
Some time later I tried to print and found a status message in the tray
that the job was stalled. The Minolta status monitor said that there was a
mismatch, communication problem, or bad cable. Knowing that the hardware
had not changed, I suspected a drive issue and reinstalled the driver.
That fixed the printer issue ... until the next reboot when jobs stalled
with the same error message. I tried switching the printer port from ECP
(where it had been at the time of the original, working install) to
bidirectional and back without improvement. Playing with the settings, I
discovered something _REALLY_ weird:
If I go to the OS' "properties page" for this printer, under the PORTS
tab, and select something _other_ than LPT1:, clicked APPLY, and then
went _back_ to reselect LPT1:, the printer works fine for the rest of that
session ... until I reboot.
Something has changed the way the os communicates with the printer via
the parallel port. I have a workaround, but would like to fix it
permanently ... does this ring a bell with anyone?
[By the way, if I sacrifice a USB port and connect the printer that way,
all is well for as long as I care to try. But I'd _really_ like to use
that parallel port as before...]