spoolsv.exe - 100% CPU usage

From: Steevo (steevo_at_uk2k.nospam.com)
Date: 04/07/04 

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 16:02:43 +0100

Since yesterday evening whenever I log on to windows the system runs
extremely slow. When I bring up task manager, spoolsv.exe is using all the
CPU available, forcing the usage up to a constant 100%. I tried to end the
task by clicking end process, which fixed the CPU problem although I found
it had removed all my printers and disabled me adding them back again.After
discovering that the process was the printer spooler, I rebooted and, on
log-on tried to restart the process using the Services window. This
temporarily fixed the problem, although it soon reoccurred a couple of
minutes later. Has anyone else experienced this problem before?

Last night, someone tried to print from a networked computer to my HP
printer which I think must have been the cause of the problem. At around the
time of printing my computer slowed right down, and the hard drive light was
on constantly. Thinking it was not going to recover, I pressed the reset
button. I can't say if the print job caused caused the computer to slow, or
the fact that the computer had crashed at the time of printing caused some
kind of virtual "data jam" which somehow screwed up the printer spooler.
Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to fix the problem? I wasn't
too keen to wipe the machine and start all over so I decided to run the
"Upgrade" on my WinXP Pro cd (already running pro on the machine) to try and
overwrite some of the windows files/settings yet to no avail.

In addition to this, in the task manager almost all the processes have no
user name. The programs which I have started myself since logon have my
username next to them such as explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe just have a blank
space next to them. The is only one process (msdtc.exe) with "network
service" in the user name column, and four with "system" in the column
(System Idle Process, dllhost.exe, and my antivirus program). It never used
to look like that, I think all the processes had a user name in that column,
could that be related at all?

Many thanks