AOI 966 WIndows 7 re-installation fails with "Enable Bidirectional Communications" error

Sorry to post again on this issue.  I've poured through all the posts on this topic, tried everything and am still stuck.

I had two home systems both running Windows 7 64 bit with Norton 360.  The 966 worked fine on my second computer and my laptop worked just fine over the network.  I upgraded the second computer to Windows 10, discovered the printer was not supported there (no problem) so decided to move it to my laptop and make it a local USB printer.  Thought it would be easy since the laptop was able to print to it over the network.  I've tried all the following, multiple times, and am still stuck with the Enable Bidirectional Communications setting for the USB Virtual Printer Port.  That option is greyed out in the Ports tab and there is no possibility of using the Configure Port option to do anything.

I downloaded the 966 Vista 64 drivers from the Dell site, unpacked them, and followed all the instructions that have been provided by RockStar and others, including running Setup.exe in compatibility mode.  The only thing I haven't done is disable Norton and try the installation without it running.  I haven't had problems with it in the past.

I've never been successful making this printer work wirelessly or with an Ethernet cable on my network.  I tried again, and that still didn't work.  If I could make the Ethernet cable work as a workaround the USB problem, I would be happy, but would prefer the USB.

Can you give me any clues of where to look to fix this problem?  I wouldn't care so much but I just invested $200 in new cartridges that I can't return.

Thanks