For years, I've had an HP DeskJet 812C connected to the parallel port
on my Win98SE computer. The printer is shared, and I've had no
problems printing from Windows XP.

Enter Windows Vista. I set up Vista to use client-side rendering by
adding a local printer and having it point to the port for the
printer. Everything works fine when I set it up, until I reboot the
Vista computer. When that happens, Vista lists the printer as
"offline" and NOTHING I do will allow it to print again. The only
thing I can do is add another printer, have it point to the same port,
and delete the old printer.

How do I fix this problem, or alternately, how do work around the
problem by making a script to automatically add a local printer set to
print to the shared port on bootup and delete it on shutdown? I have
no idea how to make such a script or if it is even possible.

I'm using Vista 64-bit home premium.

I should mention that this is definitely a Vista problem, because I
have Virtual PC installed on that same computer to run Windows XP Pro
(32-bit) and the virtual machine on the same hardware with the
troublesome Vista as the host OS has absolutely NO problem with the
printer or file shares as far as the Win98SE computer is concerned.
As a consequence I'm resorting to doing all my Office Suite work with
Virtual PC as I don't want the hassle of forgetting to reinstall the
damn printer every time I want to print.