Exception error 06 at ... when printing from windows apps.

Greetings all,

System:
P4 1.7GHz on a Soyo P4IS2 motherboard, 512 MB PC133 SDRAM, Windows 98SE that was upgraded with all updates prior to Microsoft support cutoff date; HP Deskjet 960cse printer, HP Deskjet 960c driver version 4.3

I think my problem started about a week ago when I was unable to print more than one page from windows applications.
Two days ago I started receiving a "Fatal exception 06 at ..." error when attempting to print from any windows application.

I can get a clean "Test Page" printout from either the HP Deskjet Helper applet or the Properties page from the Windows Printer Panel. No Exception errors occur when printing the Test Page's.

Diagnostics that I have tried:
I have run Norton Anti-virus scan with latest definition files - No virus found.
I have run Norton Windoctor to check the Registry - No problem found.
Due to multiple reboots, Norton Disk Doctor has run many times without finding any errors.
I have run Lavasoft-usa's Ad-AwareSE ver 6 - No problem found.

Troubleshooting attempted:
Tried uninstalling and reinstalling an application, same error.
Tried clean booting, same error.
Tried uninstalling HP 960c printer driver and reinstalling HP 960c printer driver.
Tried uninstalling HP 960c printer driver and installing generic Deskjet driver supplied by Windows 98SE. (starting getting "Fatal exception 0E ..." error.
Tried clean boot and reinstall HP 960c printer driver (back to "Fatal exception 06 ..." error).

I have been hesitant to reinstall Windows 98SE and loose all the security updates, which are no longer available from Microsoft.

Any and all help or suggestions to help me remedy my printing problem will be much appreciated.

Sincerely,
Joe