Yeah, I figured. Oh well, no clue.

Today I am being eaten starting with my behind by my printer. My BRAND NEW PRINTER.

Which, being also an HP, is still refusing to acknowledge the presence of my computer. I can ping it, I can get to its config page through the ip address, I install it through Windows' add printer. I can print to it. I can get status on it.

Oh, and it works flawlessly on the SO's newer than mine laptop, which is also running Vista.

But I can't run HP's software, which says there's no appropriate device connected, and I can't scan from it to my computer. And I can't do the photo stuff, either, nothing that involves the printer seeing the computer.

So far I've reinstalled, levelled up the uninstalls to the point of HPs 4th level cleanup, dinked around in regedit to kill its registry entries, manually killed all the folders, deleted the port, and reinstalled again. Nada.

It is to pull the hair out.

I'd suggest HP support, but having dealt with them, you probably don't have that kind of time to spare. Although sometimes they can be a little better when dealing with installation issues because of the whole "many stores accept returns within the first few days even when its not their official policy" thing.

Well, if you're digging into registry, odds are that I'm not going to think of anything you haven't already tried. But so often weird stuff is caused by firewall and anti-virus software. Have you tried disabling it all?

The last crazy making printer problem I had turned out to be the USB cable. Since I'm running Windows 7 64-bit, I figured that was the problem and went round and round. Then I switched cables and Win 7 automatically configured everything in a few seconds without me having to do a thing.

Of course, that's totally unhelpful since this is over a network.

Any suggestions on what is the best software to run Window apps on Mac? I think there are a couple and I don't know anything about them.

I'm thinking that if I get the corporate job I'm interviewing for I will need to learn some Windows programs.

Liese, if it is over a network, have you tried disconnecting the printer from the network and connecting directly to your computer?

Okay, so I have Parallels and I love it. You not only need Parallels (or VMWare which is a competitor), but you need a copy of windows and any other software programs you plan to install.

Note: You should have a minimum of 2gigs of RAM to run Parallels or VMWare and preferably more. You should have plenty of hard disk space as well. Have enough room for a healthy windows partition, but don't require too much space.

Running Windows programs (or Linux or whatever) in a Virtual setting is not the same as working on a standalone Windows machine. Some commands don't exactly work, the keyboard layout is different. So be prepared. It is close, but not exact.

I think boot camp is a better option than running windows while running mac. You will get better performance. Also, not sure how true it is, but when my HD crashed 18 months ago or so, the first thing the tech asked was "I don't suppose you were running Parallels? I've seen more issues since that came out." Coincidence? Possibly. Granted, booting, and rebooting can be a PITA.

They have come out with a new version of Parallels since which I think has addressed a lot of performance issues.

Thanks for the feedback!

I had wondered about the starting and restarting as a PITA. That makes Parallels look more attractive. But, if there are problems...must think.

I eventually will venture into the Apple forums, but they are such a black hole that I wanted some clear Buffista spicy brains first.