thanks. I tried that first, and it didn't work. It is as if clicking the print button initiates a process that somehow doesn't get notified; I know thats not a technical description. But it certainly doesn't give any error, it seems to just not pass it onto the printer subsystem in the host.
installing the driver from windows didn't work, nor did downloading their driver installer from their website work, but oddly enough, installing their full software package, full of cruft, did work. not ideal, but a project for another time.