Spooler SubSystem App error - Help!

 

Spooler SubSystem App error - Help!

 

I am really hoping someone can help with this because I spent hours and can't figure this out.

 

HISTORY

1 Had an HP DeskJet and Adobe Pro 6.0 installed - both worked fine. Used Adobe Pro to make PDFs which I believe uses print spooler to do so

 

2. Then made the HUGE mistake of installing an old (circa 2003??) Dell A920 all-in-one printer/scanner/copier

 

3. After Dell installed, it seemed to take over the system:

a) Adobe Pro would no longer make PDFs/print, HP DeskJet was "missing/could not find printer"

b) Tried to uninstall and reinstall Adobe and HP DeskJet using add/remove programs - it would not let me - said Error 1920 Service Print Spooler (Spooler) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services. This is baloney as I AM the admin for the computer

 

4. Finally found a patch/app on the Dell site that (supposedly) uninstalled (fully?) the Dell A920.

 

BUT NOW:

5. I am still unable to print/make PDFs

 

6. When computer starts I am getting two pop up errors (a) Data Execution Prevention - To help protect your system Windows has closed this program Spooler SubSystem App, followed by (b) "Spooler SubSystem App has encountered an error and needs to close....."

 

7. I have tried bunch of things to fix #s 5 and 6, including checking services.msc to ensure spoolsvc.exe set to auto (it is), adding Spooler as exception in DEP.

 

8. Also, when I go into services.msc and look at status of spoolsv.exe it shows "Auto" but always says it is stopped. When I manually start it, I later get error pop ups when trying to open MS Office docs "Microsoft Visual Basic Compile Error in hidden module...."

 

9. I am at a loss - I see MSFT has an article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324757 that MAY be applic/be a fix but the process they outline is ridiculously complex.

 

Does anyone have any other suggestions? This is driving me nuts and I can't print or make PDFs, which I do dozens of times a day.!!!!

 

My system runs XP SP2.

 

Thanks!!