Printer Woes. Anyone help please?

[Tom Andrecht]

Here's my problem (It's a bit long, sorry): At my family's small business
we have a computer running The General Store on a Dell Optiplex for our cash
register. Up until two weeks ago everything was working fine, then the
publishers released a new patch that forced us to upgrade from Windows 98
(their previous requirement) to Windows XP (their current requirement).
Upon doing so, we found that our receipt printer (a Star 200) no longer
worked because XP sees the parallel port it is on as an ECP port and
apparently this printer wants to work with it as an EPP port. I was able to
get it to work by activating the "Detect Plug and Play devices" box and
telling it to use any assigned interrupts, then deleting it and telling
windows to redetect it (makes no sense, but that's how it worked). It
worked fine for a day and then quit again upon boot until we re-deleted and
detected. Checked the BIOS, changed the printer port to EPP only, but
Windows still says ECP and the port won't work unless we delete and redetect
every morning. Is there something we can do with the existing install of
Windows XP to fix this permanently, or are we looking at a format/fresh
install? Thanks

Tom Andrecht
Preference Pools & Spas llc.

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

Here's my problem (It's a bit long, sorry): At my family's small business
we have a computer running The General Store on a Dell Optiplex for our cash
register. Up until two weeks ago everything was working fine, then the
publishers released a new patch that forced us to upgrade from Windows 98
(their previous requirement) to Windows XP (their current requirement).
Upon doing so, we found that our receipt printer (a Star 200) no longer
worked because XP sees the parallel port it is on as an ECP port and
apparently this printer wants to work with it as an EPP port. I was able to
get it to work by activating the "Detect Plug and Play devices" box and
telling it to use any assigned interrupts, then deleting it and telling
windows to redetect it (makes no sense, but that's how it worked). It
worked fine for a day and then quit again upon boot until we re-deleted and
detected. Checked the BIOS, changed the printer port to EPP only, but
Windows still says ECP and the port won't work unless we delete and redetect
every morning. Is there something we can do with the existing install of
Windows XP to fix this permanently, or are we looking at a format/fresh
install? Thanks

Tom Andrecht
Preference Pools & Spas llc.

Have you installed an XP-compatible driver for the printer? 98 drivers
won't work. If there is no XP driver, a 2000 driver might work,
otherwise it's probably time for a new printer.

 

[Tom Andrecht]

I don't know that the driver would work. The General Store software seems
to contain the printer drivers in itself, so we'd probably have to have them
check and verify the drivers. Looking at Star's website, there is two
driver packages we can use, though one seems more appropriate unless TGS did
something weird with their printer stuff (I wouldn't be suprised at this,
half the program seems more written for computer people than regular sales
people). Thanks for the suggestion though

Tom