Epson printers on HP with XP ?

I have recently purchased a HP Pavilion PC with Windows XP. I tried using my Epson color 400 with an adapter for the cable, but it won't print text and does a lousy job with pictures. I would like to use the Epson as the HP printer won't feed certain Xmas card envelopes properly.
I wrote two letters to Epson, but have not received any response.
Not much point in me writing HP about their printer as it has obviously a poorly designed feed.
All suggestions gratefully accepted. You people are a great bunch.

 

What kind of adapter are you using?

 

Acacandy: It is a Belkin Printer Adapter. They had a CD that I was to use, but the XP system picked up on the Epson Color 400 right away and didn't proceed as the Belkin directions said it would.. Pete

 

But what kind of an adapter?

Is the printer USB? or can it connect to a parallel port as well?



BTW, I used to go to church in Reading, PA when I was a young girl Well, lol, I'm still young.....

 

The HP printer uses a USB cable. The Epson uses a parallel cable . The adapter allows me to connect the USB cable to the Epson parallel port. When I connect the Epson after first deleting the printer driver for the HP printer, Windows XP churns and says that it found a Epson Color 400 and set up for it. Only thing it doesn't seem to work as though it knew it.
I sang in a church choir at three different churches in Reading and two in Sinking Spring. Apples
PS. I am 80 - used to carry a tool bag for IBM back in the punched card era

 

So are you using microsoft's drivers for the printer? That could be the problem right there. I haven't used Xp yet... it doesn't just install drivers and go does it? (Doesn't yet you install them on your own?) Delete the printer driver and restart. When plug 'n play tries to install microsoft drivers click cancel and install the drivers using the epson software. If you are still connecting the printer via USB then you can just leave the printer disconnected and reconnect after windows boots. If that doesn't work then one option you have is to try connecting the epson to the parallel on the hp. If you are using the parallel for something else, then that is a problem but if you can't use the USB for the printer then you kinda have to move things around.

So you were a tech with the punch card machines eh?... This one professor I had would tell many stories about those all last semester. (fall semester--he's getting close to at least 70... he coughs once a sentence at least) He would say things like he would play tricks on other professors and throw the chads from the cards into their briefcases and the only way to get them out was to lick your finger and pick them out one by one because they were so small. He would also talk about the school's first computer... as big as the gym. Apparently he really liked that thing. I don't know why because you had to write all your own programs and use those cards... but the whole concept [of the computer] must have been incredible back then. It's amazing how far we have come.