Printing and opening MS Word .doc Problem

I’m having trouble opening MS Word documents and printing in general over my 3 PC LAN to a Epson 980 Stylus printer on a Windows Me PC from a notebook with XP PRO. *If* the .doc opens at all and when try to print, the notebook seems communicate with the printer, but after a waiting a few minutes I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del and get the message that the program (Word) is not responding. If I disconnect the CAT5 from the notebook all is well, Word opens and closes the documents just fine, but hook the cable back up and the problem opening the documents and printing returns. The strange part is the 2nd Windows Me machine has never had problem what so ever printing to the same Me PC over the LAN.

George
Lost in techno world again.

Notebook:
P1.4
XP Pro w/ all default protocols loaded and firewall disabled
Epson 980 XP printer drivers loaded
Office XP 2002

The PC with printer attached via USB:
P1000
Windows Me. with ICS loaded
Dial-up access to Internet

LAN:
2 Me machines with Linksys TX100 NICs to a 8 port Linksys switch

 

Just Word or anything you try to print? From notepad for instance. Or printing from a DOS prompt.

 

Not just word, but I’m also having trouble printing from all programs. At times I can get it (the XP PC) to print but it takes forever, i.e. if I right-click on the printer icon by way of Setting | Printers and select properties it can take 3 or so minutes for the properties to appear. Haven't tried a DOS prompt yet, I’ll try that when I get home if I can pry it away from the wife. By the way, I haven’t had any problem with file sharing beside getting use to the XP GUI

 

Just a thought - check on the Epson site about the WinME Epson drivers. Epsons used to be the most difficult printers to network (if they didn't have a built-in network port), due to their 'Epson Printer Management' utilities that came bundled with drivers. In the past ~year, they've fixed these problems, but there might be a needed upgrade on the ME box for the newer XP driver to communicate properly.

Essentially what I'm saying is that it sounds like the problem lies on the printer side of things, not on the app side of things. You may want to make sure your Office products are fully patched up, tho, just in case.

 

Problems Resolved!

Thanks DaddyBone, you were sort of right.

Here's the instructions for installing Epson 980 (and possibly other Epson models and other printer brands)
on a client XP machine: You'd think Epson would post this on their web
site...NOT! it's no where to be found. I also installed the Status Monitor
(highly recommended by Epson) *BIG MISTAKE* I ended up removing it because it
since all I got was repeated Not Responding errors from it, so IMO
don't bother installing it.

CLIENT: WINDOWS XP, 2000, NT

1. You must install the printer locally (i.e., on each workstation as a
directly attached printer rather than a network-attached printer).
2. After the printer is installed, right click and select "Properties ",
"Ports" and "Add Port ".
3. In the resulting dialog box, you can select a "New Port" and use the
"\\servername\sharename" format to enter the port name.
4. Click "OK" and close the window.
5. Click "Apply ".
6. Return to the "General" tab and select "Print Test Page ".