Vista Spooler Error

i have been desperately trying to network a printer at my house with a vista latop connected to a linksys router which goes to an XP system which is connected via usb to a working "Dell Photo AIO Printer 922." everything works and everything sees everybody else, the problem comes while tring to install the printer on my own machine. As i try to connect the error message most dredded by any vista printee comes up as "local print spooler service is not running" exc. now i've seen people have this fixed a few ways, none of which seem to work for my situation.

a) uninstall drivers- can't find them in the first place
b) firewall- set to allow all workgroup devices ect.
c) printer- works for everybody else in the workgroup
d) network from here- works great if you veer away from printers... but what's the point of a network if you can't print.
e) levels- helped only to see everyone while norton did it's thing.