I have a problem trying to get an old HP940C working with a 5 year old Dell Optiplex.I know that there are issues with the Dell parallel port settings in Bios etc which I am still working through, but up till now without success. The thing that is really stumping me is that it won't work on USB either. When it's plugged in I get a yellow question mark in Other devices in the Device Manager which recognises the printer but says a driver is not installed. If I navigate to the driver I downloaded from HP I get installation failed. The USB ports themselves work ok on other devices & the cable is fine when plugged into a laptop. One strange thing is that in the Add printer wizard there is no list of manufacturers & models -that section is blank. I've tried the uninstall reinstall routine but this makes no difference. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Dennis

I had the same problem once with the 'Add printer wizard' not working. The problem was solved when I started the 'Print Spooler' service. I'm not sure if that will work for your configuration.(In case you don't know how) : Run the services.msc program, find 'Print Spooler' in the list, right-click on it, select 'properties', set to 'automatic. If you just start the service by clicking on the 'Start' button and the 'Add printer wizard' doesn't work, you may have to reboot. Additionally, I also discovered that the 'Prefetch' function doesn't work unless the 'Task Scheduler' service is running. Microsoft does a great job of naming and describing things, but doesn't explain them very well. Good luck.

HP has one of the nastiest driver problems you'll run into. Their printers are great, I have several, but their drivers.... What you need to do is uninstall the HP drivers by removing the printer from the printer window. Then find the HP directory that is left behind no matter what you do. Usually under c:\program files\HP. Delete the whole folder. Then, get yourself a program like RegSeeker or RegCleaner and remove any reference to the HP 940c from the registry. Then reboot. If you're going to try the USB option, remember to install the software first, before plugging in the USB cable or you'll be right back where you started. When asked, plug in the USB cable and away you go. Provided of course there is nothing wrong with the printer itself. Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I regain consciousness

In response to your parallel port issue I suggest you disable the parallel port in the BIOS screens and boot to Windows one time. Shautdown and enable the Parallel port in the BIOS. Look at you manual for what type of parallel port settings are required for your printer. If Windows still doesn't find the port when starting then use the hardware wizard and use the option to select the hardware from a list. Once you highlight "parallel port" there, untick all the search locations. Windows should then find the driver for the hardware. If still no joy, point to the WinXP CD to find the driver.

Thanks I'll give this a try over the weekend. I'm still at a loss though as to why it doesn't pick up on USB.I tried the above suggestions re uninstalling, regclean etc to no avail. It knows it's a 940c but just doesn't seem to be able to hook up to the drivers.

USB printers usually need to have the drivers installed prior to connecting them. Some have a sequence that includes connecting the printer after a certain point in the installation of the software.