I installed an HP Officejet Pro 8500 on my Windows 7 (Professional, ver 6.1.7600 Buld 7600) computer using Vista 32-bit drivers. I used HP's program to delete all of the HP drivers and cold booted between each step of their kill process. I installed the Windows 7 drivers from HP. Everything was fine until the printer magically disappeared. The HP program group still exists but everything thinks it's connected to the HP printer via USB and not networked. I never had the printer connected via USB. And, this was working great for a few weeks.

The debate on that is still going... not conclusive whether it is David Copperfield or aliens or peanut butter cups but, printers are disappearing. It's possible they have been booted out of view... it is under review as to whther this whole booting idea is such a good idea... especially since w/ a cold boot it hurts toes. Then again it could just be invisible ink got mixed up in shipping & they are there but, they just can't/don't show cus of invisible ink. Give HP a few years, they'll have no drivers for it.Drew - MS Partner / MS Beta Tester / Pres. Computer Issues

Did you check the port configuration?

Yeeesh, so much for levity...Drew - MS Partner / MS Beta Tester / Pres. Computer Issues

I suggest you reinstall the driver. The driver should help you to install a shared printer. During the installation, it may prompt that if you would like to install a local printer or a network shard printer. Then select the correct option and finish the installation. Otherwise, you can follow the steps below to directly direct the printer driver to the shared printer. 1. Click Start, click Control Panel and double click Devices and Printers.2. Click Add a Printer. 3. Select "Add a local printer". 4. Select "Create a new port". Choose "Local Port" as the type of the port.5. In the box "Enter a port name", type the address as the following format. \\[IP address of the host computer]\[The Share Name of the printer] Then click Next. 6. Follow the instruction to finish the installation. During installing, choose the correct driver in the driver list.Arthur Xie - MSFT