HP Officejet G55 Network connection and scanning

Dear folks,

My aged Officejet G55 is connected to a PC with Windows ME, which is
hooked on my home network. The local settings work fine and I on't
wanna miss it. It's set for sharing as HPG55.

My laptop with Win XP home SP2 can connect to the printer via network
and printing is fine. However, this works only with the Minidriver that
comes with XP, which lacks some features like printing several pages on
one sheet.

The current HP driver for XP refuses to connevt to the printer via
network. I tried to installed it locally (DOT4 = USB, where I had it
connected to get the driver installed somehow) and change the port
later to the approp. LAN port, but saving this setting is not allowed.

Moreover, I can not scan via network.

Do you have any suggestions how to get this issues sorted out? thanks
for any help !!

Greetings from South Africa