Vista, Printer Properties Grayed Out

Let me say immediately that Yes, I've tried to search for this subject (using my title as search terms) but I get "tons" of non-related info. So, ..., here's my question -

We have a home network with two computers each running Vista (mine's a laptop, my wife has a desktop), and a shared printer (on the desktop). I have been able to print on the network previously, but her machine recently had a HD failure/replacement, and that necessitated a series of settings changes on both machines (when I first noticed the quirk noted below - I'm quite sure it hasn't always been like this!).

On my laptop, when I go into Control Panel/Printers/Properties, I see that "bidirectional support" is not on - but I can't change that because it's grayed out on my machine. I've tried all kinds of things, done a bunch of research, but don't know how to fix this.

Anyone know what to do to make Printer Properties active again? Thank you in advance for your help.

 

Greetings, drfugawe...

Just a quickie: did you right-click, click 'Run as Administrator'?

 

Yes - but everything is still grayed out.

Appreciate your help.