I've recently received some new PCs which were shipped with Windows 7 Professional. I overlooked that they did not ship with a parallel port.
These universal PCI cards meet the PCI and PCI Express standards that have been adopted by PC server manufacturers and are available in standard and low profile form factors. Serial-parallel PCI combo cards are also available for those applications that require both serial RS232 and parallel ports on a single PCI or PCI Express card interface.
These PCs are for use in a point of sale application, which requires a dot matrix printer. Mcafee for windows 10. I first tried USB to Parallel to connect the printer, however, this does not work, since the printer isn't smart enough to identify itself, it will not appear as a printer.
My next solution was to add parallel ports via PCI card adapters. The card installs okay, and Windows 7 finds drivers for it and installs them. No errors appear in the device manager, however a couple of odd things happen.
Pci Parallel Driver Test
1. Device manager gets the parallel port(s) under Ports (COM & LPT) however it also gets a 'multifunction adapter' in a different section (Not sitting at the PC now, so I don't recall which.) Both devices appear to be fine and report that they are working properly.
Pci Parallel Port Driver Download
2. Under 'Printers and Devices' I get 1 (Or in the case of a dual parallel port card, 2) 'Microsoft aw Port' devices.
I then install the driver for the printer, and add the printer to 'LPT3' which is the parallel port device added in device manager. Print the test page, and.. Nothing. Open the print queue, and it's empty. Try printing another test page, and it appears briefly in the queue and vanishes, just like it would if the print job had succeeded. If I try a different device, it (as expected) reports an error that the device does not exist.
Pci Parallel Port Driver Windows 7 64 Bit
Dual boot linux windows xp. Though this does not directly apply, the knowledge base article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883253 seems to describe some similar cirumstances, enough so that I wonder if there may be a connection. Perhaps the parallel port arbitrator is not installed in Windows 7 by default if the PC did not have one? If this is the case, how do I install it?
If this is a wild goose chase.. Well, that's why I'm asking the question.
Help!