Old Canon Multipass C5500 and USB

[Noviceman]

I have the same issue as massagegirl had back in 2003. I couldn't find a reply to her issue, so I'm posting it anew. I have an HP Pavilion a1410y with USB ports but NO LPT ports, running XP Home. I bought a USB-to-parallel cable to connect my Canon. Windows hardware wizard finds and identifies the device but cannot find the software to install it. I downloaded a driver for XP from one of the driver websites (XPC5500) but Windows can't find whatever file it is looking for in XPC5500. If I launch the installation directly from XPC5500 it works OK except that when it comes to selecting the desired printer port, the only ones offered are LPT1, 2 or 3. No USB port is selectable. Short of buying a card with LPT ports on it, does anyone know of a workaround?

 

[kimsland]

but Windows can't find whatever file it is looking

I would allow Windows to automatically set it up, but that file (it's looking for) if you go Ok OK and then browse, what is the filename it wants ? Is it part of the XPC5500 package (you may need to extract this package, I use Winrar.

 

[DelJo63]

shutdown the system

plug in the USB-Lpt adapter and connect to the printer with power on

now boot the system; auto discovery should do the right thing (we hope)

 

[Noviceman]

Nope, auto discovery doesn't do the right thing. Its looking for a file called "setup information", I think. I'll try winrar.

 

[Noviceman]

Nope, winrar doesn't work. Its looking for a file that was archived using winrar, which c5500.exe was not.

 

[kimsland]

What about allowing: automatically searching for the driver - online.

These parallel devices drive me mad mind you, it was the same when there was no USB; setting up these devices sometimes took 1 minute and sometimes took hours.

HP online has an automatic driver find and setup on their home support page, I wonder if canon does that too.

 

[Noviceman]

I have let Windows look online for a driver, but it failed. Canon doesn't even have a driver for this device on their website. I even went into control panel, printers and faxes, clicked on the Canon, selected properties, and changed the port from LPT1 to USB. That didn't do it either. If I go into device manager and click on the Canon, the system says the device is working properly, but if I click on "driver", it says no driver has been installed. But it has been installed, by launching from the downloaded driver file. If I launch troubleshooter, it just verifies that the printer won't print. What a runaround.

 

[kimsland]

I think it has come down to one of two options:

1 Buy a parallel card (although I wouldn't)
2.Purchase a USB printer (yes that's the one)

I'll leave the choice with you.

 

[Noviceman]

Good advice! Although I'll probably keep trying to make it work for a while before I finally succumb.