[geeks] WinXP SP2 Print Spooler Crash - Any ideas?

[Mark Benson]

I just got a problem crop up on one of our machines (2007 Dell
Dimension Athlon X2)  in the office completely at random it seems, and
this will be the second time it's happened here. There doesn't seem to
be any cure save for a re-install which is not practical at this time
on either machine (one machine is mine and reinstalling would take
more than a day  due to all the software I use plus setting up MySQL,
PHP, etc.).

The issue is thus:

When trying to print (in this case to a printer on the network) the
printer list goes blank, then a standard error message pops up saying
"Spooler subsystem app has encountered a problem and needs to close.".
When I try to add a printer it refuses and says the Spooler Service is
not running (which it isn't, I checked in the Services tool).

Any attempt to restart the spooler caused it to crash. I presumed a
driver had gone south, so I ran the 'cleanspl.exe' tool in the Windows
Resource Kit Tools to strip all the drivers ut of the spooler system.

No dice, the spooler's still crashing and the system won't print at
all. It's thankfully not 110% critical as the guy at that desk ony
does a small amount of printing.

I solved mine somehow (was a while ago, last October I think) as mine
prints okay, but this one won't budge. They are both identical age
Dells (different models however) with Windows XP SP2 on.

Any ideas? I'm totally screwed here, I've tried googling and turned up
some stuff but it's all either long lists if reg hacks (which I#m
reluctant to do unless I have to) or they are things I've tried
already to no avail.

Just wondered if anyone here had run over this little gem, it seems
pretty common.