Office Jet IEEE 1284.4 Port Disappearing

Whenever I restart my computer, the IEEE1284.4 ports
(DOT4) used by my OfficeJet R80xi disappear. The only
way to (easily) enable them is to change the 'Filter
Resource Method' options on the ECP Printer port. It
does not matter what you change the setting to, the act
of changing it seems to trigger some sort of refresh that
enables the 1284.4 ports.

Is there some way to disable windows from (erroneously)
re-polling the printer port at boot or is there some way
of forcing the 1284.4 port to be perpetually active?