The 25 pin "D" connector Tweakie refers to MUST be a female connector for it to be a parallel port connector, otherwise it is most likely a serial port connector (which can be either a 25 pin of 9 pin variety).
I just went through getting my long used XP 32-bit Windows PC running Mach3 w/XBox joy-stick controller running again after upgrading it to Windows 7 32-bit, so if I can be any help let me know.