Are you using XP and are you logged in as an administrator?

Is the LPT port enabled with in the OS and working properly?

Has the computer got a printer driver trying to send a file to the LPT port?

A fresh install of XP may be needed, I had one with old dongle software on that tested for the darn thing every few milliseconds, new install cured it.

Graham

Update!!

Right in front of my face...the computer that I'm typing this on has a parallel port!!!. I downloaded Mach3 and installed it. Set the parallel port to EPP. The driver installed correctly. Now, running a multimeter from pins 1 or 16 to a ground pin shows 3.3V in active low and 0.07V in active hi. These are the pins that run spindle and coolant in the PROMICA xml. Soooo, it looks like f I use this computer, I should be able to run Mach into my G540...Hmmmm...It's not switching the spindle and coolant. I will talk to Gecko and see if there is a problem on that end.

Still would love to use one of the other three computers as I have a ton of stuff on this one and it would be a pain in the butt to move everything to one of the others. So..still looking for suggestions to make the others work. I just verified that I'm not crazy and CAN download and install a program.

Thanks for your input Graham:
Yes, administrator privileges
LPT enabled and set to EPP in BIOS
No files being sent to LPT
I have considered wiping the entire drive and reinstalling XP, however, the discs I bought are nowhere to be found

Ronncat

give this a whirl. after you have everything installed that you think should work.
1 shut computer down cold
2 reboot
3 go to device manager
4 uninstal all drivers like -sound - printer - com - basicly the scrap stuff
5 shut down cold
6 boot to cmos and reset defaults
7 reboot to windows safe mode using f8
8 check to see if all the drivers have been found and installed - stay there untill you get them all in
9 reboot

bill

Bill,
     Gave it a whirl...No luck.

Thanks for trying.

Try doing the optimisation steps that are detailed in the doc you will find on the downloads page, usually that is for helping with the pulse but you never know it may help your problem.
Also might be worth uninstalling  any programmes you have that are not needed, apples quick time is notorious for messing the pulse up, so if you have that delete it, not heard of it stopping the driver installing but you never know, same with antivirus if you have it, try disabling.

Hood