I have an old but reliable HP Deskjet printer which works with a parallel cable connected to my pc.

I have acquired a laptop and, of course, it has no parallel port. I have purchased a cable which converts my printer to a usb connection but this won't allow printing. The printer is recognised as operating and, when a document is sent to the printer, it appears in the print queue. But there it stops and won't actually print out.

This is not an issue woth my laptop (Vista) as I get the same result when I use a usb port on my pc (XP).

I have seen many issues with Vista/ old printers/ and these adapters not being compatible.

In either case did you reinstall the printer & drivers using this cable?

Yes - nothing seems to work. The drivers appear to be ok and certainly the parallel cable still operates on the pc. It seems to be a problem with the printer in handling the feed that it gets through the usb cable.