pk, yes, frustrated is an understatement. Don't like spending so much time on such things that are probably easy. Did a lot of research with no resolve. Printer is hooked up to a desktop; DT hooked up to router. I don't "think" the printer is connected directly to router. Not sure what ethernet is. Laptop works wirelessly to the printer. Laptop is 8 mos old. Was working perfectly fine with printer until this new router was installed the other day. I have not tried plugging the printer directly to laptop. I'll try that in the morning. Brain is fried right now so I'll continue on this quest in the morning since I need the printer for work. Thanks for the help. Wonder if uninstalling the computer software from laptop, then reinstalling it again, will work.

Thanks for your help, pkponder. I installed the software on my laptop, and everything is up and running. This morning when I turned on my laptop, though, I got a message telling me that Windows Firewall had blocked the printer monitor that I installed. Of course, I read the dire results of allowing an exception... and I'm afraid to allow it, to be honest. I guess I have to, though, in order to use the printer? I used the printer fine (from my laptop) last night, after installing the software, so the Firewall blocking this morning surprised me.

Any laptop should be able to hook up wirelessly. The question you should be asking is: Does this computer have enough RAM and a big enough hard drive for today's needs? If it is running on a system with Windows ME installed it's probably near the end of its useful life in terms of what a student's needs might be (and is probably old enough that it could have a hard drive failure in the near future). It could also have too limited a capacity to allow a new operating system to be installed, such as Win XP, and certainly not Win Vista. You can get a brand new laptop -- with a warranty -- that has all the capability your son would need for most purposes for under $500 at Dell, or even a little less if you watch for deals at places like Circuit City or Best Buy on brands like Acer, Compaq, or Toshiba.

some links for reference Sharing your printer wirelessly Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 and XP this is what got mine working properly, I found the info on the windows 7 forums (Jimbo45) after I did this it worked great. Just be sure to put the name of your actual machines and names in there rather than what he is using as an example. "to share Printers attached to XP computers with either X-64 or X-32 versions of Windows 7 is SIMPLE. These instructions are for the Printer attached to the XP machine (but works in reverse as well). ("Stand alone" Network printers can be done slightly similarly BTW). assume the computers are call XPMACHINE and W7MACHINE. 1) Ensure Printer on XP machine is shared - assume it's called SHAREDPRINTER. 2) On the Network Browsing on your Windows 7 machine ensure you can "See" the Printer share. Now on the Windows 7 machine do the following (doesn't matter if it's X-86 or x-64). 3) Control Panel==> add LOCAL (Yes LOCAL) printer. I know it's on a Network but hold your horses -- what we are actually doing is "Poodlefaking" the Windows 7 machine into thinking it's running the printer. 4) Create NEW port==>Local port 5) Portname is \\XPMACHINE\SHAREDPRINTER 6) Now Windows 7 will load a driver and you'll be able to print on the XP machine. Simple (For a "Network stand alone printer") at 4) chose TCPIP port and at 5) enter the IP address. If the printer is on the Windows 7 machine and you want to print on the XP machine then do the same instructions on the XP machine -- port name in this case will be \\W7MACHINE\SHAREDPRINTER Here is a link that might be useful: windows 7 forum