Network printer with 2 different operating systems

Ok, i give up.

I'm running Windows XP on my client (laptop) and Windows ME on the host
(desktop) computer and i can't print from my laptop to save my life. The
printer is shared, but what actually prints out is gibberish.

I assume it's a driver issue to which i've spent about 3 weeks attempting to
figure out how to get the proper driver installed on my ME host computer on
the assumption that's what i need to do. I see where XP is set up to walk
me through the process of installing additional drivers if i'm sharing the
printer with a computer using other operating systems, but i don't see in ME
where the process is spelled out for me like it appears to be in XP. My only
option for installing other drivers is installing drivers associated with a
different printer, not a different operating system. Hence, i'm lost.

For what it's worth, the printer is an HP 1600 series.

I attempted the fix talked about here
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/NetPrinterNoPP.htm and it got me to where
the printer was actually printing coherent English - which was an
improvement - but it doesn't print what i'm attempting to print. And the
test "page" was about 30 pages long before i finally just canceled the print
job.

Help!