The answers to all your problems are at GardenWbebs Computer Help Forum This forum is meant for the discussion of personal computers, including recommendations, common problems and solutions. These people will want to know which computer and OS you have acquired.

"As soon as Windows 7 is installed, it creates a default HomeGroup. If it detects an existing HomeGroup, you will be given the opportunity to join, but you will need the password. For home and small business users, HomeGroup is an excellent tool, but there is a problem. HomeGroup only works when all other machines on the network have Windows 7 installed, which in the short term, may not be the case. There will be many situations where the network has XP or Vista machines as part of the network, in addition to Windows 7. So, how is it possible to get them all to work together?" See link above.

I have always been a fan of the high end HP printers however last August when I moved from Ohio to Massachusetts my good printer somehow got packed in a container of household goods that was not scheduled to arrive here for another 6 weeks. For the first two weeks I was selecting photos to print and putting then on a flash drive which i then took to WalMart or my local camera store for printing but that was a real PITA. I happened to be in Staples on an unrelated errand and I saw a Kodak ESP 7250 printer scanner on sale for $99. I needed a new scanner so I thought what the heck, I'll try it. Right out of the box with the sample Kodak paper that came with the printer I was impressed, then I printed a couple 8x10 with some generic glossy photo paper and the best I could say is, they sucked. I went in the printer setup and changed from draft to Best quality, but with the generic paper the prints were still a mess, often coming out with way too much ink, feeling wet and they smudged when you touched them. Well, as they say, when all else fails, read the directions. I read the directions and did the setup routine to match the printer & paper, but even though it improved, I was still not happy. As I read the directions it said that Kodak recommended using only Kodak Paper, but who pays attention to that. That is just to promote purchasing their products, right? WRONG- In further reading I discovered that Kodak Papers have a bar code printed on the back side of the paper. The printer reads that code and sets up the printer to the specific needs of that paper whether you use MATT, Semi-Gloss or Glossy paper. In fact, I used glossy in the 4x6 tray and Matt in the 8x10 tray and it worked fine. Here is the catch I thought. They offer cheaper ink but get it back on higher priced paper, but to my surprise, when I priced the Kodak Paper at WalMart it was slightly cheaper than the HP paper. I then printed 2 8x10 and 6 4x6's on this printer, then put the photos on my flash drive and had them printed at both Walmart & Staples to compare print quality. To my surprise the prints from my printer were equal to or better than those from the commercial printers.

Printing a picture is much different than printing text. When you print a picture, each dot (pixel) has a location and color information. The jpeg format has been standardized for generic printers and you printer is able to print each dot. If the photo prints correctly with proper color and no missing lines, etc, this is good news because it means that certain parts of your printer is working, namely the print head and ink supply, and the servo motors that moves the head and advances the paper. It also says that communications between the printer and computer is working. All you are missing is the ability print a character when an ascii code is sent to the printer. Way, way back in desktop computer history, the letters of the alphabet and special characters were assigned numbers called ASCII code. (Look this up on the internet with google to read about it.) When a computer wanted a printer print the letter A, it would tell the printer to go into its print mode and print ascii 65. The printer had to know how to form a dot pattern for the letter A. Most printers had built-in maps of al the ascii characters. This was fine except that early printers had only one fonts set. (A font is the design of the letter characters, and there are many different sets., and each set usually has an italics form as well. There are 2 ways one might print different fonts: Build the font sets into the printer or send the printer a mapping of dots to make a line of print. Some printers have one or more sets (native) of fonts built-in, but can also print a bit map of dots sent by the computer. This is where the print driver comes in. Its a piece of software that lives in the computer's software library. It controls all printing done by the printer. it takes on the job of making and sending bit mappings or ASCII characters to the printer. These days, a print driver is required to make the printer work. The Window's programs contains drivers for many printers, but if it does not have one for a printer connected to it, that driver needs to be installed for best results. You have a MAC computer and operating system. I am not familiar with the MAC, but I think it also contains many printer drivers. Try re-installing your printer. In your computer find your printer control panel (In Windows, the printer panel can be found in the "Control Panel".) Open the printer panel and see if your printer is installed. If not, install it. If it shows, but is not selected as the default device, select it. If it is there and selected, unselect it and check ok or whatever your system requires. Close the printer panel. Now, re-open the printer panel and select it as default, press ok, and close the panel. If the printer does not work after re-installing, it might be time for a new printer. Printers are not expensive. The companies practically give them away at cost because they will make plenty of money selling ink cartridges. That's where the profit is. ON MORE THING: You said there was no paper jam, but there might be something inside that you have not seen. Most HP printers have access to their internals from a panel on the back of the printer. Open that up and take a look. Go to the HP web site and look up your printer. You may find a manual for it. Download a copy. You may not be able to print out the pages you want (until you get a working printer), but you can display these on your screen and that may be helpful for finding you way around your printer.