XP Peer to Peer printer problem

I'm having a problem with an HP1018 attached to a "printserver" (read: older computer that does nothing but share the printer out) in the school office. It used to work fine in exactly that configuration but recently has been problematic. All involved machines are XP pro.

Symptoms:
# attempting to install the printer on a client machine by start | run \\recep_printserver and then double clicking on the shared printer fails with "Operation could not be completed. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server."

# Installing it using Start | Printers and faxes | add printer and browsing for it works succesfully, but.....
# When users print to the printer, nothing happens until the spooler service on the printserver is restarted - at which point the jobs all print off in a glut, but new jobs still hang around until the spooler service is restarted again.

It's doing my head in - I've been a NM for over 10 years and I can't get this damn printer to share - seriously starting to doubt my own sanity!

I've tried the old driver that used to work, the newest one from HP, Firewall is off, I even reimaged the printserver machine and started again! I'm seriously considering throwing the whole kaboodle into the skip (sorry, press F5, into the pile for the approved WEEE recycling company:rolleyes:) and sticking an epson C1100N in like the rest of the school!

there are quite a lot of documented cases on t'internet of the 10xx series of printers being a pain the proverbial to share, and we've had problems with them too. We fixed ours by removing machine from ad, from dhcp and from dns and then rebuilding,

I'd throw it away if you can and get something else, they are nasty little printers at the best of times.

Windows CD is in it right now, DNS and AD records removed. let's see what it thinks of the stone age!