Purchased as a spare, but the old one just keeps on chugging along--and it's about 10-12 years old! This one is sitting on a shelf, waiting to be needed.

I'd like to start off by stating that overall I use and like many of the linksys products, including the routers, wirless products and network adaptors. I also work with computers for a living, so I tend to be able to resolve most technical problems on my own accord. This product attempts to fill an industry niche of allowing any parellel printer to be network ready. It does this in two ways, a browsable print server or a locally configured port.I was running this product without a problem for a while, although it frequently would get confused and drop the connection and require rebooting. I have it attached to an HP Laserjet 5P which is a very reliable and stable printer. I noticed that if I ran the product in a mixed type mode using some of the browser print servers and some port based configurations, it would crash and just stop working and require a reset. When I changed everything to the same configuration it worked better.When I tried to configure and work with the print server from my Windows XP Home edition laptop things got very messy. I was able to figure out that the Windows XP built in firewall was blocking any use of the EFSP42 Linksys print server. To confirm my findings I did extensive testing and actually read the firewall logs. Apparently, this server was accessed on the normal port 80, but responds on port 3079. To solve this problem I had to turn off the build in XP firewall. I don't blame this on Microsoft, it was just functioning as a stateful inspection firewall should, however; linksys developed this product long before XP was on the market and has not put out updated firmware to deal with this situation.I called Linksys and spoke with someone in the tech support, their response was we don't ever recommend using any personel firewalls. Perhaps microsoft and some of the other personal firewall manufactures should be aware of the fact that linksys is telling people not to use their products. The fix is relatively simple for Linksys, simply don't randomly change the inbound port (it should be the same as the outbound), but the technical support person couldn't understand the nature of the problem.If you can affort to purchase a dedicated network printer, or a print server from the printer manufactures this is a far better long-term solution. You can also use any computer on your home network and set up print sharing and essentially create your own print server.I tried to upgrade the firmware from the website using the bi-admin, but the version on the website could not recognize me device, so the techntion had to email me a 4 MB file not available to the general public. This updated utility was able to recognize the device, but then when I went to flash the firmware, I recieved a "H/W Mismatch Error". So, now I've send another email to Linksys to try and get the proper "bin" file which apparently is not on their website either. For some reason this product will NOT allow you to update the firmware from the web administrative pannel and requires the bi-admin utility (seems like a very inconsistent solution compared to their other product lines).My guess is that this product was produced very quickly to fulfil a small market niche and not much R&D or quality went into the design. They haven't undated the firmware in over two years, which apparently has caused many problems. I gave it two stars because the 4 port switch worked, although a "C" note for a 4 port switch seems like a lot. Good luck to anyone who purchases this product, you will need it!

I have an HP LaserJet 6P which I share on my home LAN.I started with the HP JetDirect... had problems with it not always appearing in NetBeui browse.I dumped that and got Intel PrintStations. Those worked well with Win98 and WinMe, but then showed Netbeui browse problems under WinXP.So I tried the Linksys Print Server. I will echo many other complaints... it's not up to the quality of other Linksys products. I could not get it to install properly using the Quick Setup instructions (device name would not show up under Browse!).I read the manual cover to cover, and decided to fix the IP address using the Bi-Admin utility.STILL had problems getting the print server to show up under their default PrintServer driver.THEN I uninstalled that driver and tried to do everything using the IPP (Internet Print Protocol) instead.SUCCESS! I installed the IPP driver on all my client PC's, and it's been working wonderfully since then.It shouldn't have been this hard to get it working, but it finally solves my problem and works better than the HP and Intel print servers I tried earlier.

I purchased a Linksys 10/100 4 Port Switch with Print Server. I had two problems with it. First: the unit arrived with two printer ports but only one printer port status LED. The manual clearly shows two status LEDs, one for each port, but the faceplate only had holes for one. Second: I couldn't get it to work with my HP 5L Laserprinter. The directions were clear enough, but I couldn't get the Linksys software running on my 200 MHz Pentium Pro to recognize the HP printer. I called the Linksys supposedly 24/7 tech support (at 9 PM PST) and the recording told me that my call would be answered in 20 minutes. I gave up after waiting 55 minutes to talk with someone. The next night I called at 7 PM PST and waited 45 minutes before giving up. No one at Linksys ever responded to my email asking for help. I called on the third day during business hours and was told that tech support would call me back--they did not. I contacted SMC for information about their router/print server and got an email response within 3 hours. That did it. I returned the Linksys PrintServer (Thanks Amazon for such a great return policy) and bought a SMC Wireless Router/Switch/Printserver. It worked great! The Linksys PrintServer might be OK if it works for you, but don't count on getting any tech support.

Don't be scared away by some comments. I just got one, it works terrific.Remind you, I don't have any experience installing any router, or print server before, though understand how it works...After hesitating for a while, I decide to take the risk trying another print server, that's Linksys Etherfast.Once I got it, plug it into our campus LAN, then, install the CD-ROM. Instantly, I can see the printServer on the network. (Unlike HP, this is the only linksys I can see, so, easy to find.) Then, I hook two printers up, configure port, select device port. All of them worked immediately, without even reading its manual (said to be very bad. I don't know.)One thing as some reviewers found, when setup the tcp/ip configuration, I have some problem. But it does not affect the function at all. With this price, and its many ports, good compatibility. I love it.