xp to windows 7

Maybe someone here can help me out.

I've recently decided to replace my ailing xp desktop pc with a brandy new box w/ Win 7 64 bit OS.

My problem is that I have an older Brother DCP-1000 Multifunction printer/copier/scanner that lost its USB port when some not-to-be-named-here clumsy fat guy tripped over the cable and tore it out- however it's been running for several years just fine connected via its parallel port to LPT1 on my xp pc.

When I bought all the junk to assemble the new pc, I included a PCIe to parallel adapter, which shows up OK as LPT1 in device manager in Win 7.

Brother, bless their hearts, will not provide a Win 7 OEM driver for the multifunction unit, saying it's too old (7 years is too old? Gimme a frikkin' break...) and they refer you to Windows update for a driver, which I found and installed, but it only works the printer portion of of the unit, no joy with the scanner.

I installed xp mode on a virtual PC in Win 7, thinking I could install the xp drivers for the unit and use the scanner in xpmode, but xpmode has no support for LPT1.

Since I just sunk a bunch of money into computer hardware & software AND recently bought a drum and several toner cartridges for the printer, I really can't afford to buy a new multifunction or a dedicated multisheet scanner right now.

I'm thinking my only alternative is to set up the old xp pc as a sort of print server on my network and use it on the occasion I need to scan 100+ page documents.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

SS

P.S. I'm 100% down with Frank Herbert's Butlerian Jihad..........