USB Printer recognized as IEEE

[desolationw]

Ok so heres my story

I have a HP officejet 5110 and it worked fine on my old xp pc.

I recently got a new pc with xp already installed on it and when i went to install the printer it said it couldnt because the print spooler service wasnt running. It turns out that the file 'spoolsv.exe' in windows/system32 didn't exist anywhere on this computer so i copied it from another windows install and finaly got the service running.

and now the problem

now when i go to install the hp 5110 with latest drivers, it installs the drivers fine and then when i go to plug in the printer, it brings up the newhardware/installing/finished and says it's ok. Then another pop-up comes up saying that the printer failed to install as no port was specified. in device manager, the printer (when 'installed') comes up under 'IEEE 1284.8 compatible printers' and 'IEEE 1284.8 devices'.
I have also tried this with an epson 830 and the exact same thing happens.

I am very confused about this, never had it happen before and i am leaning to a windows reinstall but would rather not have to. thanks.

 

[edklite]

are you pointing the device to the drivers you installed for it?

 

[desolationw]

Yup, i point it to the hp drivers and it installs it fine at first, then an alert comes up saying it couldnt be installed as it couldnt find the correct port.

 

[edklite]

and you are connecting your printer via usb ?

 

[desolationw]

yes i am

It doesn't look like the proper printer stuff like the spooler was installed with xp for some reason.

 

[edklite]

I'm no expert on this subject but at this point a quick xp repair will reset everythign right, maybe you had a virus or something that needed to get cleaned and some of your files got cleaned with it or maybe they got deleted some other way, anyways xp repair will fix all of that and let you keep everything as it is.

 

[Zoron]

I also assume that when you installed the drivers that you installed the USB drivers and not the parallel drivers?