HP450ci USB connected keeps crashing XP

[StressedTechie]

I have a couple of users running XP sp1 attempting to print to a HP450ci via a USB connection. As soon as they put the usb cable in it crashes the system, the same happens when they disconnect.

Any ideas why this would happen. I have a Windows 2000 user doing the same thing but without the errors!!

 

[petraip]

Ran into something similar with a different model inkjet.
Turned out to be a collision with the nowadays usually half-baked parallel port drivers for printers on XP that were installed using the foofy auto-install routines. (current thinking is: why are you using parallel port?)

Win2K parallel port drivers usually get more thought.

Check for and remove any parallel port drivers for that model printer and try a clean manual install of the printer drivers using _only_ the USB drivers. Usually, HP wants the drivers installed before the printer is connected. My experiences confirm that you really want to make sure you install the drivers without the printer connected. Hope this helps.