I bought an HP printer for my laptop and I cannot get it to work. All the software/driver stuff installed properly and the printer is set as the default printer in the Printer folder in My Computer. When I try to print, nothing happens, but in the print dialog box, under status it says "printing"

What's going on?!

Yes, the printer is on
Yes, everything is plugged in and connected
Yes, there is paper in the printer
Yes, there is ink in the printer
No, it is not paused

Yes when you installed the printer you told it to use the wrong connection

e.g. USB when its not...

Maybe ???

It is USB. When I installed it it gave me these choices:

FILE
COM1
COM4
LPT1
LPT3
FAX

Which one was i supposed to choose?

None of those are correct! WHat I would do is uninstall the printer, unplugging it first, then plug the usb cable with the printer on back in.. When it starts looking for a driver tell it to search the cd...

Ok, I'll try that.

Printer is indeed working now. Thanks for your help.

Glad I could help :)