2nd Parallel Port Problem with Win XP....

I've made a simple vb program that turns on relays for a length of time through the Lpt1 port. It works great, but because the system already has a receipt printer that must use Lpt1, I have to use a PCI 2nd Lpt card. That's where the trouble starts.

Windows XP recognizes the card ok and i can set which port it is... lpt2 or lpt3 and i can hook up a printer to it and it works just fine. But the port won't respond if i send any signals to the address of lpt2 using the same vb program.

I've already tried using Debug to detect the port addresses and it tells me the addresses of lpt 1,2,3 tried them all only lpt1 works. In fact i've tried many different possible addresses

I'm thinking somethings up with this card because it installs a "Multi I/O" device in Windows Device Manager with an irq of 22, besides the Lpt2 device under comm ports. Also it's one of those slanted 1/4 size cards with only 1 ic on the whole card. Someone said it may be redirecting the port address to who knows what.

Anyway... has anyone successfully accessed a 2nd PCI Lpt card using VB on a XP machine and if so, what card did you use?

BTW I've tried both inpout32.dll and io.dll with same results.

It will be a virtual printer port, not available to DOS I think.
Perhaps can you need a redirector to LPT2?