I do not manage to get Inkscape 0.48.4 running with Epilog Laser Mini 24 and its Windows X64 driver (ethernet connection) on a Windows8 laptop. The whole works fine with Corel Draw, but Inkscape encounters two serious problems:

1) In Inkscape, when I change my print preferences, the changes are not saved, not even until the subsequent printing. So, when I really want to change my preferences, I have to go to the Control Panel and change the preferences there.

2) A persistent issue (still here since years, but apparantly not solved) is that apparently Inkscape converts all output to raster (or the laser printer driver interprets it as such when Inkscape is the sender).

Please, advise.

Have you tried saving your work as pdf-s, and printing them outside inkscape?

Also, the printers should convert vectors to rasters on paper, unless you have an eggbot or alike.
So is handling vectors as rasters before the output is done by the printer showing up in printing issues?
Saving work as pdf should work on it as well anyway.