Need Help Investigating The Details Behind A System Restore

I agree with Carol.

That Spooler subsystem error is related to printer problems, so that is likely the first avenue of investigation.

Mark

Event Viewer - DUH! That gave me the info I needed - thanks for stimulating my brain. It gave me a much better chronology of what was going on that morning... much better than my memory, apparently.

Some more background info:

I normally put the PC in sleep mode at night, which I did Sunday night. Monday morning a little before 6am, I wiggle the mouse and it wakes up. I log in (admin rights) and begin my day. I can't remember every keystroke or mouse-click, but I started getting the Windows error messages "Spooler subsystem app has encountered a problem and needs to close." According to the Event Log, the spooler restarts after 60 seconds. Then I would get the same error again a few minutes later. I can't remember if I was actually trying to print something or not.

I have 2 printers installed on this PC, both USB connected:

HP LaserJet 1012
HP OfficeJet 6110

Both have been installed for years and worked with no problems. To this point Monday morning, I was NOT installing or uninstalling any printer drivers/software.

I Googled the spooler error message which lead me to this MS KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810894

Following the KB article, I reluctantly uninstalled both printer's software/drivers, cleared the contents of the folders listed and made the registry edits.

I downloaded the current drivers/software from the HP website and installed the package for the LaserJet 1012 first. By looking at the timestamps in the Event Log, it turned out the "unsigned driver" Restore Point was from this reinstall, so looking in the Event Log cleared up that mystery for me.

The 1012 has printed normally since that time with no more spooler errors. I had an unrelated problem trying to reinstall the driver/software for the OJ 6110 which didn't get resolved until late yesterday afternoon after opening a trouble ticket with HP and not getting to talk to their escalation team until yesterday.

As of this morning, I have both printers back working normally with no more spooler errors. I did not need to use any restore point.

I will probably never know what caused the spooler errors in the first place.

My only remaining problem is a result of doing the registry edits in the MS KB article. WinXP had 2 "default" printer devices - Microsoft Shared Fax Driver and Microsoft XPS Document Writer. I even see them on my laptop running Win7. The registry edits deleted these 2 devices (no big deal) but ever since, the Event Log is showing many errors where some process/service is trying to access these devices and of course, can't find them. I either need to find out how to reinstall them to stop the Event Log entries, or find out which process/service is trying to access them and stop it, unless stopping the process/service would cause other problems.

I'm about to go Google-ing but if anyone has any idea how to reinstall these 2 devices, please let me know.

Thanks for your ideas,
Gary

Quick update - I found the windows fax & scan service in Add/Remove Windows Components. Since I have never used it, I uninstalled it. I'll see if that stops the Event Log entries.

I went ahead and also uninstalled it on my Win7 laptop which resulted in the fax device icon being removed from Devices and Printers.

So now I'm down to the XPS Document Writer. I'm not sure its even worth worrying about. Its another Windows feature that I have never used.

And very little food at that.

Gary, am I correct in assuming (make that presuming) that your only concerns now, are with how "to stop the Event Log entries"?

If so, I'm wanting to suggest you find a good book (unrelated to computers) instead, but I fear you won't understand my humor and take insult with such a suggestion.

On a more serious note, IF everything is working properly. And IF you're not getting any errors, other than the one's you have to go looking for (in the EV), why not let things be? I can't say for sure, I would follow my own advice, but then again ..... it's only food for thought!

Best of luck..
Carol

Carol - You are presuming correctly - both printers are back installed (with some level of difficulty) and working. I am no longer getting the spooler app needs to close errors. Guess I'll never know the root cause of those!?!

I like your sense of humor I could care less about the XPS Writer not showing up in Printers and Faxes and I have no desire to make my life's effort chasing down every entry in the Event Log. I'm moving on!! Right now, to my new Win7 laptop. Just installed Virtual PC, XP Mode and it is slick. Easier than dual boot.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!! And thanks again for reminding me about Event Viewer.

Regards,
Gary

Gary..

If I hadn't been in the same situation, where I got "a little nutty" with EV errors, I never would have written what I did. As you, I finally realized my time was better spent elsewhere.

That said, I think we tend to forget the Event Viewer exists, when (at times) it can provide a wealth of information.

Enjoy what's left of your Labor Day Weekend!

Carol