HP Laser 1020 woes on XP

Question

c:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86\hewlett_packardhp_la26dd\
Hi, needs some suggestions here.  
For my home network, I have two PCs (2000, XP).   I had my HP Laser 1020 for some years installed on the  2000 box, shared for the XP  machine to access. No problems for all these years.   
Then a few days ago I upgrade the 2000 box to Window 2003 server and downloaded the 1020 drivers for it from HP.COM. I installed it and it was all ok locally. Then I created a share \\pc2003\laser. On the XP box, I deleted the old shared printer  and added it back in for the new share.   The shared printed was installed, print tested etc.   
However, and I didn't attribute what I have been seeing to the shared printer on the XP box, but I had began to see Explorer slowing down, the desktop icons would refresh more than usual or maybe that it was slow enough to notice it.   I had also installed new stuff on the XP, like a video capture driver and SilverLight. and especially the XPS Viewer which added the Microsoft XPS Document Writer printer.   Everything was working as far as printing.
But then last night I started Office Visio 2003 to draw a document and I wanted it in Land Scape Mode. Under visio, you click FILE | PAGE SETUP and toggle the landscape radio button.   Well, the page setup dialog would hang and you have to eventually kill Visio with task manager.   It was only when I went  to the Page Setup that this occurred.
So what did I do before finding out it was the HP laser 1020 drivers?
Figuring it was the latest stuff I installed:
I removed SilverLight,  same problem.
I removed the  CamStudio video capture software, same problem.
Under Visio help, it has a Detect and repair.  Did that, same problem.
Googled  the net for "Visio 2003 Page Setup Hangup",  nothing really relevant.
I created a new account on the XP and logged in to get a fresh desktop.  IT WORKED!
So what was the difference?  I haven't yet realized it was the HP Laser 1020 drivers,. so I ran VISIO.EXE under a debug utility called DEPENDS.EXE which shows everything (DLL files) that it loads.   It starts visio, so I did the FILE | PAGE SETUP and noticed that visio was stuck trying to load the HP DLL file:
 SDhp1020.DLL
Now, I am writing this and I see there are several of two of  them under c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers,
c:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86\hewlett_packardhp_la26dd\
c:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86\3\
so I can't tell you which one it was but it was enough for me to try delete the shared Laser printer on XP and that fixed that problem with VISIO and also my GUI speed is back. Explorer speed is back,  desktop icons are not refreshing.
Suggestion?  Can I use an older driver that use to work fine on this XP box?
PS:  The additional drivers on the 2003 installed location does have [X] for XP selection.  That was automatic I believe. 
Thanks

Answer 1

There is a SAP note of 40+ pages that lists printers and the suggested driver to use in SAP - search OSS with PRINTER DRIVER key word and you will probably find it.
A lot of printers work using POST2 or PCL4 or PCL5 setup in SPAD.
Another option is to print to the printer as a frontend printer so you are using the windows printer driver for it - Try a printer of type 'G' access method (Frontend Print using Controls) - this is the newest supported method.  Does not help if you need to use printer in background.
Andrew