SplWOW64 Service APP Crash when Print Spooling from a 32bit Application

Question

Wanted to throw out an informational post to hopefully save some people some time!
The issue that I encountered is related to users running Windows 7 64-bit trying to print from a 32-bit application.
This started as what I thought was a QuickBooks issue and after too many hours of debugging came back to an error with the splWOW64 Spool Service.
If you are in Firefox you will get an "Error encountered while printing" or in QuickBooks you will get about 5 different Cannot Connect to Printer Errors. You can view the error in the Event Viewer from Administrator Tools. The error is an APP CRASH
related to the sqlWOW64 Service.
To fix this error you will need to Manually Restart the Print Spooling Service from Services. To get there go:
Start->Right Click on Computer-> Manage
After you have restarted the service (or you can restart the computer) go to your Devices and Printers accessible from the Start Menu. Follow these steps to disable Spooling:
Right Click on the Printer and Select Printer Properties
Select the Advanced Tab
Click the Radio Button next to "Print Directly to Printer" instead of the top option to spool.
Try to print from any 32-bit application.
If this doesn't resolve the issue and you are using a network printer you may need to update the drivers for the printer manually instead of find
From the Devices and Printers:
Add a Printer
Add a Local Printer
Create New Port -> Select TCP/IP
Enter in the IP Configuration
When it asks you to Select a printer hit Windows Update to Update the Printer Drivers
After this is complete Select your printer.
When Prompted use the Replace driver option
Make sure the Settings for the printer are the same as listed above
Hopefully this will save some troubleshooting time and Microsoft can get 32 bit print spooling fixed!

Answer 1

If you have an older HP printer, there is a QFE for splwow64.exe.  You can determine which file is causing the process corruption as well if you wanted to narrow this down further.  I assume you already picked up the QuickBooks fix for this issue
as stated in this post
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7hardware/thread/fca2f377-8d9c-4b04-b8e5-1370be176735/
splwow64 QFE
FIX: A legacy HP printer driver may crash when you run a 32-bit application on a computer that is running a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or of Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979681
Alan Morris Windows Printing Team