Still just playing, but really not wanting to be beaten. Only reply if interested.
Well, it seems there is a complete forum on making this old printer go with Vista and late XP...and most of the answers take you to -- guess what? a program that downloads and installs before it mentions a word about money.
Driver detective, and Down load smarti-pants, they all want your money, then just tell you about all the bits of your computer that aren't up to date with their drivers. Nothing but nothing lets me install the listed printer.
Although I know that getting a decent OS is what it's all about, this experimental/learning copy could be at fault. Certainly, when I'm told to put the Windows disc back in, that's when it all grinds to a halt. But, as discussed, before, with XP home, it just loaded without resorting to the disc...and worked. Which is a good job, because the only soft was on the HP machine when it arrived.
Installing this Pro version has trebled the speed of the machine, well, a vast loading improvement etc coincided with it. Can't be just the Barracuda drive...can it? I've now got so many odds on it, that it's not because its simply unburdened.
The word Vista pops up from time to time, it really does look like a hybrid OS.