Use printer offline - how to change this?

I cannot print to my HP Laserjet 1100 printer from any Vista applications. If I am clicking on the printer icon to see whats happening with the printjob, then I can see it but the window header says "Use printer offline". If I am going to the Printer menu in this window, then it has this option selected, but greyed out and I am not able to change it. I tried to change USB ports, and part of the issue is that the new pc I purchased has no parallel ports, only USB ports, so I purchased a USB to parallel cable and it worked fine until now, except that I have to unplug and plug it to get my printer recognized, but nothing helps. If there is anyone who has some solution for this issue, then please let me know about it. Thanks.

If you have an all in one model, are you still able to scan? Initializing it from the unit? Initializing it from the software?

Are you using the latest driver? A lot of things changed with Vista, including a move to XPS for the printing system. With that comes a lot of scrambling from manufacturers to get things working well, so a newer driver is very likely to improve things. Simply reinstalling a driver may fix a problem as well.

Beyond that, all I can tell you is that a print server like the one linked below might work better, but it's not guaranteed. The other option would be a PCI parallel controller, which may work better than the USB controller. But you'd have to open your computer to install that, which may void a warranty or be beyond your comfort level.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122028

Did you try to download all the latest software and driver for you printer from the HP website from here - http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...&swEnvOID=2093

You can try to troubleshoot printing problems in Windows by following the method given on this link - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/163551/en-us