Print Spooler Crashing - HpTcpMon.dll

Today I ran into an issue on my own PC *gasp*. I was chugging away at creating some documentation and when I finally finished the document I needed to print it out. I clicked on Print and suddenly.....  No Printers Found. I scratched my head for exactly 3 seconds (not really, but figured I would add some intensity) and started looking into why I had no more printers. The first thing that I looked at was to see if the Print Spooler service was running, of course, it was not. I started it up and it started successfully, I then looked at my SCCM guy and blamed him for a patch that he must have snuck on my computer.


I went to print the document again.... No Printers Found. I went and checked the Print Spooler service and it was stopped again. I tried starting it up and it started successfully. This time I waited 15 seconds while refreshing the Services Console and noticed that after 10 seconds, it stopped itself.

I then looked at my superhero sidekick and yelled... To the Event Viewer!!!

I noticed these two entries under Administrative Events.
Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          11/15/2012 12:13:42 PM
Event ID:      7034
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Description:
The Print Spooler service terminated unexpectedly.  It has done this 4 time(s).
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Error
Date:          11/15/2012 12:13:42 PM
Event ID:      1000
Task Category: (100)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Description:
Faulting application name: spoolsv.exe, version: 6.1.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7b4e7
Faulting module name: HpTcpMon.dll, version: 7.2.5.51, time stamp: 0x4ab0e4d3
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000000ad75
Faulting process id: 0x1c54
Faulting application start time: 0x01cdc3548a5b770c
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\System32\spoolsv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\HpTcpMon.dll


Now the second one intrigued me so I went to the path where the dll was located. It was still there with the same modified date as the other HpTcp files. I figured I would do what any risky IT person would do... I renamed the file to HpTcpMon.dllold and went to Services and started the Print Spooler back up.

Viola! The Print Spooler started back up and did not stop unexpectedly. I figured I would at least look into what HpTcpMon.dll does and ran across this article...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947477
I kinda chuckled at the last step for resolution when I read it.

Hope this helps someone.