Printer Stopped Working For No Apparent Reason

I recently got a new PC, with Win 7 on it, which is new to me. I have had it for a month, and a week or two ago I noticed that the printer was no longer working - I don't use it that much, so I can't say exactly *when* it stopped working, but I *do* know that it did work when I first got the new system. This makes me suspect that a Windows Update hosed things at some point. BTW, I am running Win 7 Home Premium SP1.Anyway, the actual problem is that every time I try to print now, the printer "uh-oh" box pops up in the middle of the screen and says "Printer not reponding". If I am not trying to print but just click on the little printer icon in the lower right task bar, I get the same box and the same msg. I remember having this problem periodically with the Toshiba laptop (with Windows Vista) that I had before I got this hot new system, but I could usually power-cycle the printer and get it to come back online and print. And it certainly was not totally dead as it now is with the new Win 7 system.I have researched this a good deal on the net. I have re-started the Print Spooler Service, ran the Hardware Troubleshooter (which didn't help because it couldn't find a printer). This printer, a Kodak 5100 All-in-One, was set as default printer. The Kodak site told me to run the "Kodak Printer Setup Utility", which I did. It failed to find the printer...so much for that. Next, I un-installed all the Kodak software, then downloaded the latest version, with drivers, all of which was newer than what I had. When it was done installing the software, it went thru the printer detection sequence, and failed to find the printer just like its older version had.

I read in several places that I should delete the printer and re-add it, so I tried this. I was unable to re-add the printer, though, because the Kodak software can't find it - perhaps deleting it was not the wisest thing to do...oh well. I am dead in the water now because Windows is supposed to automaticcally detect a USB printer when it is connected (isn't it ?), and it doesn't find mine. BTW, the printer itself works...I just used it earlier tonight as a phot-copier. I have also tried several different USB ports, both front and back of the system case (no hubs or extenders here). I had finally decided that the cable was the only thing I could think of that was left, since the printer itself does actually work. Then it occurred to me to dig out the cheap Toshiba laptop that this hot new system replaced and try it with the printer...after all, it worked before. So I connected it back up to the Toshiba laptop, and it won't work on it, either, now.I decided that this was incontrovertible evidence that the printer cable was the culprit, so I bought a new one, connected it, and.....nothing. Still won't detect the printer with the new cable attached!!Now I'm completely bumfuzzled. I am a veteran problem solver and trouble-shooter. I remember in my old programming days, running a hardware debugger and tracing DOS interrupts through the OS code, and now I can't figure out what's wrong with a printer? One last pearl of information that only adds to the craziness: I noticed when booting the new system that the AMI BIOS message says "USB devices found: 1 keyboard, 2 mice, and 3 hubs". I thought the "2 mice" was kind of strange, so I went into Device Manager, where I found two entries under "Mice and other pointing devices"! Both are titled "HID-compliant mouse" and are identical. If I delete one, my mouse stops working. If I delete the other, mouse still works, but next time I reboot, I have two mouses in Device Manager again. I thought this might be the key, that perhaps my BIOS was detecting the USB printer as a 2nd mouse. This is one reason I went back to the Toshiba laptop...it used to work, and *should* still work, esp. in the light of my "phantom mouse" theory, but it doesn't, and so I have hit the proverbial brick wall.