The following steps are what I discovered over about a 4 day period. My
system is Vista Home Premium and I have a LaserJet 2500 color printer. I
was previously running XP Home SP2 and I figured it would be easy to
move the LJ2500 over to my new Vista machine and still use the XP system
as a backup.
Needless to say moving the printer was the hardest part of migrating
from XP to Vista. I'll just list the steps needed to get the printer to
work.
1. Go to the HP website and download/install the Vista PCL6 driver. Here
is the link for that:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...iesId=81954&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=2093
2. Using the Control Panel/1Printer/Add Printer function, add your
printer. When you do this use the top option which says something like
"Use this option only if you have a non-USB printer..."; use this option
even if your printer is actually using a USB connection. For the printer
port specify either USB (if that's what you are using) or LPTx (if using
a parallel port.)
3. This should get your printer to print OK, but there will be 2
problems: (1) if the printer is a color one (the 2500 is a color
printer), your printer will print only B/W, and (2) the HP Status
Monitor software will not be able to communicate with the printer
because it (the software) needs to use something called a DOT4
connection, not a USB connection.
4. You need to install the DOT4 port to get the HP Status Monitor to
work. You can install this from the CD that originally came with your
printer but you have to run the Setup program in XP Compatibility mode.
To do this browse to the Setup.exe program on the CD, right click on
it, Select Options/Compatibility and specify Run in compatibility more
for Windows XP. This will let you install the printer (again); this
time use the DOT4 port that will be an option. However, it will have a
problem: it will be set to PCL5. This is not good.
5. You now have 2 printers installed. One is using PCL6 and a USB (or
parallel) port; the other is using PCL5 and the DOT4 port. Take a deep
breath and delete the PCL5/DOT4 printer. The go to the Properties/Ports
tab for the PCL6 printer and change the port to DOT4. This port type
was what you did Step 4 for; there is no place on the HP website where
you can download the DOT4 port driver.
6. Your printer should work OK and so should the HP Status Monitor. I
did a couple of reboots between several of these steps but I'm not sure
that's necessary.
Remember, the key is to get PCL6 and a DOT4 port in your printer's
configuration.