printer port

I've upgraded & in the meanwhile, trying to get a little
more life out of my printer so I downloaded an XP
driver. I've tried every conceivable way to get this
hardware working.

The Add A Printer doesn't work - "Operation Could not be
Completed".

"usable port for this printer cannot be found".

This msg started popping up after I changed the device
manager for the LPT printer port. I've since uninstalled
the driver, hoping the hardware will seek out a port.
Must be tired, I'm fresh out of ideas.

help?