Customer Rating: 
Summary: Shoddy stuff
Comment: I seldom get to the point with a product where I will write reviews, but people need to be warned. I am a cto of software company, 48 years old and cut my teeth on: VAX, 360, C64, Z80's, 6502, AMD 9511/12, AppleII, Lisa, Fortran, Basic, C, C++, RS232, HP Logic Analyzers, etc. I don't think I have done it all, but I have done a ton of it. My wife (who's account I am using), has a unmodified 6 mos old HP laptop with XP/SP2, my daughter an e-machine (4 mos old) also running XP. These boxes need to share a brand new lexmark printer. I could not make it work out of the box no matter what I did with the config utility, or either XP box. I came to Amazon and saw Chris from California (posted oct 17) had it figured out. Applied his suggestion and had it working in 30 seconds after 2 hours of messing with the IO gear manual. Piece of junk not worth the time. The manufacturers need to make this stuff work right the first time, otherwise at $50 its not a good deal at all because of the time it cost me. IOGear, never again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for the novice
Comment: I finally got mine to work, but only after a struggle. All the comments are right - the documentation is of little value, especially for XP users, so you end up puzzling it out for yourself.
For what it's worth, here's what I found (I was plugging the print server into a Microsoft wireless router, and using it to drive an Epson 2200 printer.) The device picked up an IP address from the router's DHCP, but after all the warnings I'd read, I decided to play safe and assign it a fixed IP address. The XP firewall (I'm using XP2 Professional) did not affect it (BTW, the firewall automatically assigned port 9100, which is standard for printing.)
The instructions said assign the printer to a network port, but I'll be damned if I could find that as an option, so I chose a TCP/IP port instead. I chose LPR as the protocol. However, by doing this, I found that I had to assign a port name and a queue name, which I got from the printer server's Admin program.
Having done all this it works fine - much better than my old configuration where I was using an old Windows 98 computer as a print server. No problem printing big Photoshop files etc.
Hope this helps you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Save your money, buy my 'used' unit - big discount
Comment: Reviewer: bc53 from Merrimack, NH USA
I read the reviews, saw the pessimism, and still bought one. Now I'm sorry. Apparently it works great if you have an HP printer; mine is a Canon. I've tried everything, even sent it back (they said it "tests OK" and sent it back to me). I'm running Windows XP - followed all directions, set up the network print port. It sees the printer - printed a test page, but nothing else since then. Spent time with tech support... If you want one of these, contact me and I'll sell it cheap - hate to see it go to waste.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not happy, tried really hard to be
Comment: I first purchased the 802.11b version of this USB printserver. It didn't work. I tried serveral access points including the Cisco CS1100, and the netGear MR812v2. Ended up sending it back to get the wired version in hopes it would clear up the problems. After hasseling with their support they finally granted me an RMA, but I had to fight for it. Two months later, I got a replacement unit. Then they billed me for a new unit! More problems I didn't need. The thing did work for a while, and is now on the fritz again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Product!!!
Comment: i was reading all these reviews and did not agree with any of them. opened the box installed it and it worked fine. i had no problems at all. the product works great with my hp deskjet. only incompetent people would have problems with setting up this unit. it's pretty straight forward. i feel sorry for all these people who think they are really smart techies or give themselves prestigious technical job titles can't install a simple device as this. i mean if you don't know anything about computers then don't pretend to.
Summary: Shoddy stuff
Comment: I seldom get to the point with a product where I will write reviews, but people need to be warned. I am a cto of software company, 48 years old and cut my teeth on: VAX, 360, C64, Z80's, 6502, AMD 9511/12, AppleII, Lisa, Fortran, Basic, C, C++, RS232, HP Logic Analyzers, etc. I don't think I have done it all, but I have done a ton of it. My wife (who's account I am using), has a unmodified 6 mos old HP laptop with XP/SP2, my daughter an e-machine (4 mos old) also running XP. These boxes need to share a brand new lexmark printer. I could not make it work out of the box no matter what I did with the config utility, or either XP box. I came to Amazon and saw Chris from California (posted oct 17) had it figured out. Applied his suggestion and had it working in 30 seconds after 2 hours of messing with the IO gear manual. Piece of junk not worth the time. The manufacturers need to make this stuff work right the first time, otherwise at $50 its not a good deal at all because of the time it cost me. IOGear, never again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for the novice
Comment: I finally got mine to work, but only after a struggle. All the comments are right - the documentation is of little value, especially for XP users, so you end up puzzling it out for yourself.
For what it's worth, here's what I found (I was plugging the print server into a Microsoft wireless router, and using it to drive an Epson 2200 printer.) The device picked up an IP address from the router's DHCP, but after all the warnings I'd read, I decided to play safe and assign it a fixed IP address. The XP firewall (I'm using XP2 Professional) did not affect it (BTW, the firewall automatically assigned port 9100, which is standard for printing.)
The instructions said assign the printer to a network port, but I'll be damned if I could find that as an option, so I chose a TCP/IP port instead. I chose LPR as the protocol. However, by doing this, I found that I had to assign a port name and a queue name, which I got from the printer server's Admin program.
Having done all this
Hope this helps you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Save your money, buy my 'used' unit - big discount
Comment: Reviewer: bc53 from Merrimack, NH USA
I read the reviews, saw the pessimism, and still bought one. Now I'm sorry. Apparently it works great if you have an HP printer; mine is a Canon. I've tried everything, even sent it back (they said it "tests OK" and sent it back to me). I'm running Windows XP - followed all directions, set up the network print port. It sees the printer - printed a test page, but nothing else since then. Spent time with tech support... If you want one of these, contact me and I'll sell it cheap - hate to see it go to waste.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not happy, tried really hard to be
Comment: I first purchased the 802.11b version of this USB printserver. It didn't work. I tried serveral access points including the Cisco CS1100, and the netGear MR812v2. Ended up sending it back to get the wired version in hopes it would clear up the problems. After hasseling with their support they finally granted me an RMA, but I had to fight for it. Two months later, I got a replacement unit. Then they billed me for a new unit! More problems I didn't need. The thing did work for a while, and is now on the fritz again.
I'm not going to bother with it anymore. I could have built a print server for the amount of time I have put into this afair. Stay away from these jokers, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, and money you like to give away for products that are not ready for prime time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Product!!!
Comment: i was reading all these reviews and did not agree with any of them. opened the box installed it and it worked fine. i had no problems at all. the product works great with my hp deskjet. only incompetent people would have problems with setting up this unit. it's pretty straight forward. i feel sorry for all these people who think they are really smart techies or give themselves prestigious technical job titles can't install a simple device as this. i mean if you don't know anything about computers then don't pretend to.