Parallel to USB port. Why did it work?

[KHT]

I did an upgrade on an outdated computer, HP Pavillion. After a RAM, HDD upgrade and install of W XP Pro, everything worked great except the HP Deskjet 722 would not communicate via the parallel port. It installed on my XP Pro system without a hitch. It wanted the 720 driver but I`ve come to accept this from HP printers.

So, I suggested trying a parallel to USB adapter thinking their parallel port was bad. After some research however, it seemed as though a parellel to serial adapter would be a better choice as it didn`t seem possible to create a USB port for a HP 722\720 printer. HOWEVER, I just received a call telling me that the P\USB adapter worked great, making me come out of this smelling like a rose but, I`m not sure why it did.

Is it an XP thing? In any event, I have a job coming up in a year or so for a total sytem upgrade, MOBO, CPU, the whole works...

Can someone explain why the adapter worked?

[andyms18a]

the best explainiton i can give is if you add windows to a computer somedays the curtans open and somedays thay dont

a winxp systom loves usb all so you may want to check in the bios that the parallel port is set to ecp/epp not spp as most printers nead ecp to run

[KHT]

I did try epp and ecp on his machine. My XP machine has epp enabled because the scanner has a passthrough which requires epp.

BTW, I appreciated the comment about the curtains opening some days for windows and some days not. I think we can all appreciate that.

[morriswindgate]

If nothing works you need to get a PCI Parallel port card, not only are they cheaper that the adapters, they always work!