Vista Network Shared Printer -- Slow Performance

Like many others that I have found, I am also experiencing exceedingly slow
“printer connect” performance from my Vista system attempting to access a
shared printer on a network. Following many hours of research, it appears
that numerous individuals have seen this slow printing performance in their
configuration of Vista accessing a shared printer on an “XP machine” and have
successfully corrected this issue by installing the printer on the “remote”
Vista system as a “local printer” as opposed to “network printer” and then
creating a new local port pointing to the shared printer
(\\computer_name\shared_printer_name) as a port for this printer to use.

Unlike these many others with the shared printer on an XP system, my
configuration is a Vista Ultimate desktop with a shared printer attached and
a Vista Ultimate laptop wirelessly connected to the network to use this
shared printer.

The desktop system has two shared printers: (1) an Epson Stylus Photo 825 on
USB and (2) an HP OfficeJet 3050 on USB (DOT04_001 as it installs). Both
printers work well directly from the desktop system. The Vista laptop is
also configured to use both of these printers over the network and can
connect and print to each, yet while the Epson’s print performance works
perfectly, the HP 3050 exhibits the symptoms of an intolerably slow
connection as noted by other users (long wait times for the print dialog,
sluggish MS Office performance while “waiting on printer to connect” if the
HP is the default printer, etc).

I have completed all of the “usual suspects” to the best of my knowledge to
no avail – downloading latest drivers for HP printer, turning off all
firewalls (McAfee), uninstalling and removing all drivers and reinstalling
printer and setup from scratch, etc. Still same issue – Epson works great
across both connections, HP 3050 is painful over the network shared
connection. I should also note, as have others, I’ve had this printer in my
previous XP environment and the shared printing worked perfectly prior to my
Vista configuration.

Not sure if the solution above for the Vista-to-XP users will work for me,
but I also tried this without success. I set up a new HP 3050 printer on the
laptop as a Local Printer. I then attempted to Add Port/ Local Port/ New
Port and enter the path name of my shared printer at which point I then get a
Local Port dialog error message “Access is Denied”. Again, I have attempted
to turn off all firewalls, turn off UAC, and anything else I could think of.
I have seemingly no ability to add a new local port to gain the relief that
others have enjoyed.

If you know of any possible solutions or seen any others with similar
symptoms, I would be exceedingly grateful for your time in sharing them.

Very best. Thanks.