Vista Printer Spooler Problem

I am having an issue with my Print Spooler in Vista.

I have tried everything I can find on the net and I still can not add any printers.

Explorer crashes when I attempt to add one. It used to give a spooler application error but I tried a fix I found online and that error went away but it still crashes and wont let me add anything.

Can anyone help because this is seriously starting to affect my business?

Best,

Elio

 

I am having the same problem on a Dell w/Vista that is barely a year-and-a-half old. It got so bad (annoying) that I simply shoved the machine in the corner more than six months ago and went back to my seven year-old machine with XP.

I get a "Found New Hardware" prompt on EVERY start-up, AND EVERY time I switch between user accounts. NOTHING I've been able to do in months and months of trying has worked. Talk about annoying.

A "friend" of mine who had used the machine for awhile while I was away performed MULTIPLE forced/hard ("Disruptive") shutdowns on this machine, and I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. I the Vista Performance and Reliability Monitor I get: "Abnormally Stopped System Services" - Exit Code 1068 - C:\Windows\System32\SpoolService.exe - Started: False - State: "Stopped".

I have tried changing/fixing things in "Services" - to no avail.

Is there anyone out there with ANY suggestions or ideas on what we can do? Anything, anything at all??

 

I don't know, maybe someone can help with this gibberish that I scoured out of the bowels of this machine? I've attempted to install a total of four (4) printers now (two which are Dell's - though one was from Europe, and I probably shouldn't have tried that one?).

 

Wow thanks David - looks like lots to do so I'd better get-going here ... quick question first (and I know this may seem ridiculous, but if I don't ask I won't know): on the first link, should I download the zip file AND the installer please?

Thanks in advance ...