My old BJC-4300ex printer worked great with old PCs (Win 95 & 98). New PC is Vista Home Basic....and it's not working. First problem was the obvious no parallel port on the CPU so I hooked up a USB to Parallel Converter cable. Can't seem to get it configured properly. Is BJC-4300 series compatable with Vista? Is there an updated driver? Can I just not connect via the coverter cable? Help!?!?! :( (PS, I was able to print a test page once but I keep getting print error messages when finished spooling.) Marie

bad news: the printer is not compatible with vista good news: you can always revert to windows xp which might be the best solution given the fact that you only have 400something MB of system memory and vista requires at least 1024 MB ram. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

"Home Basic" is a lame excuse for a Vista version.....not quite XP on one hand & on the other not up to snuff as a *real* Vista flavor. However, the solution to the printer problem is to follow mattie's suggestion & revert back to XP or upgrade your printer to something that's compatible with the OS.

"bad news: the printer is not compatible with vista" Good news: Mattie appears to be wrong. Vista has built in drivers for your printer. Unless he has other information about your printer (please share if you do), it appears your printer is compatible with Vista. Bad news: It appears most likely you're having issues with the USB converter. You could get a parallel port for your computer possibly, but considering the age of your printer, you'd probably be better off getting a new printer. TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE! http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html

the built-in drivers only work with the parallel port, NOT with the usb port ... but what's new in vista? Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

Thanks for the feedback. The computer was on lease via aliant so I can't do much about having Home Basic version of vista other than to down grade as upgrading at this point would most likely be even slower with the specs of this PC...so back to my problem with the USB parallel converter...any suggestions? Do these converters normally work? I've followed the lame instructions which came with it but for some reason it just doesn't seem to work. Since the printer as printed the test page is it possible it's just to do with the configuration of vista software? Marie

"the built-in drivers only work with the parallel port, NOT with the usb port" Do you have anything to back this up? First you said the printer isn't compatible with Vista at all, and now you're saying Vista doesn't work with a USB adapter. Where are you getting your information? "so back to my problem with the USB parallel converter...any suggestions? Do these converters normally work?" To be honest, I've had mixed results using them on any OS with any parallel port printers. Sort of a luck of the draw if it works or not. Another potential inexpensive solution... http://www.compusa.com/products/pro... TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE! http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html