Just network you printer instead of using a stupid switch   .

my printers on my network...and it has no ethernet either

im sharing my internet connection w/ a router, and i just did that make a home office network wizard thing...and bam it worked

That is a very good point, you can imagine how angry I get when it's late at night and I'm finishing up my homework. Then I'm like, "Yes, it's finally time to go to bed!", but little do I know I will have to wait for 15 minutes while that slow ass piece of S#!t computer, with the printer, starts up. It's usually on though because we keep all of our music on that one computer, and then just listen to it through the network   .

There's actually a little thing that I've read about that sounds kind of interesting.  It's a piece of software called "FreeSco", it's supposed to function like a Cisco router...the only drawback is, it's Linux of course...which I'm not knocking, but there is a big difference between Cisco IOS and Linux (of any brand)--Cisco IOS is specifically built for a particular task, when Linux is kind of "cobbed" together to make it do whatever people want.

Anyways, the reason I mention it here is because...from what I understand, you can use a really old 486 or something, don't even need a hard disk just a floppy---and setup the machine as a print server with the printer connected directly to the old 486 via LPT.

Of course, if you're asking this question because you are in a business environment, that might not be that much use to you.  But if it's on your home network, it might be a viable option rather than investing in a $200 jetdirect print server or using that crummy A/B switch.

well just for S#!ts and giggles, if you're running roaming profiles...have him log into the computer next to it (if you haven't already--I can't remember and I'm too lazy to read this thread again).  If it works, then it's obviously computer specific, might try blowing away the locally stored stuff on his computer c:\documents and settings\%username%

You might try adding the user to the Print Operators group on your network.  Also, there are some inexpensive printer server adapters so that you can make the printer a network printer.