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From everything I've researched, this is an issue that is usually related to a virus. I can't find anything on the system. Scanned with Avast with the drive in and with it out of the system. Malwarebytes, ComboFix, Kaspersky TDDSKiller (Rootkit). Nothing was found... So I'm assuming this is the left overs from a virus that was on here at one point in time. Anyone came across this issue and had a fix?

Could be a crappy printer driver. I've had something like this happen several times on a user's Laserjet 1022. If that's what it is, the band-aid is to leave the spooler shut down, go to c:\windows\system32\spool\printers (IIRC), clear out the spool folder, then restart the spooler service.

bthylafh wrote:

Could be a crappy printer driver.

Well there are a good number of HP printers in the office, so that explains the bad print driver theory

When does this happen? When a print job is queued up or on login?

My first instinct is to rebuild the print queues with fresh drivers. Note all of the attached printers, delete all of the attached printers, restart the Spooler service then delete all of the drivers from the print server on the local machine. When you delete them, select "Remove driver and driver package" from the dialog box. Restart the print spooler just to be sure everything has been flushed out and re-add printers testing to see if the problem comes back.

bthylafh wrote:

Could be a crappy printer driver. I've had something like this happen several times on a user's Laserjet 1022.

Heh! I have a LJ 1022n. Mine doesn't crash my spooler, but it does stop printing after it's been idle for 5-10 minutes. I just power cycle the printer itself and my pages start shooting out again.

Doesn't happen every time with that user, seems to be certain documents only.

If I had to hazard a guess, those documents are too big or complex for the printer's memory and the driver is poorly written enough that it can't deal.

@bthylafh

I have a Xerox at work that will crash whenever a Google Map is printed from IE9 to a Phaser 4620 with PS drivers. Firmware has fixed the problem for other models, but Xerox hasn't updated the firmware for that model just yet.

The issue i was having would happen at system start up and whenever certain programs where started. Due to the type of programs (specialty remote tax programs) and their nature to query the local systems printer list, im assuming that this error reared its ugly head due to a bad driver as stated above. Deleting everything in the spooler folder as suggested and then manually removing all printers from the list and manually re-adding them fixed it.

I will also say that the registry cleaner/optimizer from Raxco (perfect disk guys) does actually appear to kick ass. I actually bought a copy today for 29.99 as it came with perfect disk for "free". After running the cleaner and getting rid of a purported 1200 issues (after ccleaner registry cleaner) and then defragging the registry, the dell 2400 ceased its random explorer crashes/lock ups.