Help! Ready to throw and both printer and PC!!

My sister just got her 2 year old Gateway PC slicked because of consistent performance problems, and had XP reinstalled. Got PC home, found that her Epson Stylus 880 no longer worked. So she downloaded a new driver from Epson site, (a self-extracting file, that I assume installed where it needed to go). Then tried to "Add printer", but it stated that for a "plug and play" printer, she should not use that wizard, that XP would recognize the new printer and install it automatically. So she closed the window and.....nothing. She rebooted, and still nothing. She unplugged the printer cable, and re-plugged it in, and still nothing. How do we get this darn thing installed now?

Welcome to Windrivers Cindy B!

I sympathise - epsons can be a bit diffiult at times.

So first thing we need to know is what connection type to the computer is being used... parallel or usb?

One thing that is terribly important is that you load the software WITH THE PRINTER TURNED OFF. When the software asks to turn on the printer, then you do it, and even then you may find problems.

Also with XP you must have administrator rights - if you are not sure about that, use safe mode (press f8 just before windows loads). You have to login as administrator for safe mode and quite often this is whats needed to install the files correctly.

Please post again with the connection type and whether you have tried to do it in safe mode before.

Yes, as NooNoo states, it is truly important whether the connection is USB or parallel prot.
If the printer is on when XP bootd and it doesn't see it then we have problems, either way.
Especially since the 880 is supported natively by XP.
Give us more details and if possible, try the printer on a different Pc.
And, as NooNoo says: welcome to WinDrivers.