Spooler subsystem problems with laptop

I have a laptop with WinXP. I have a network in the office and one at home--I use an SMC card with the laptop to connect to either one. I have been getting "Spooler Subsystem App has encountered a problem and needs to close" consistently but I think I tracked down the "why" but I could use some advice. If I go to "printers a faxes" in control panel, it shows the printer at work (HP2200) and the one at home (HPLaserjet4). Of course depending on where I am, at least one of these printers will not be found. At about the same time that "unable to connect" appears under the printer name (e.g., the HPLaserjet4 when I am at work), the "spooler subsystem" error will pop up and turn off the printspooler service. At that point, all printers are useless so I have to restart the printspooler service. It almost immediately shuts down again once it does not find the printer.

I tried disabling "automatically search for network folders and printers" in control panel/appearance and themes/folder options but that did not really help.

I have to assume that there are thousands of folks out there that use a laptop at multiple locations, each with different printers. So how do you avoid getting a printspooler crash when XP does not find a particular printer?

Thanks,

Doug

 

Anyone?!?!

 

This is invariably caused by using the "Setup a Home or Small Office Network" wizard. Articles 324757/810894 do not resolve the problem and send novice users into the registry.

Instead download the utility posted by Brother Ltd which repairs the spooler:
http://global.solutions.brother.com/Library/en_us/faq/faq000539_000/index.html

 

I long ago solved the problem--I erroneously set up a printer that was on the network using Win98 drivers rather than the WinXP drivers. Once I removed the printer and all associated entries in various directories and then reinstalled the printer correctly, the problem was gone. Thanks anyway.