Vista suddenly claims: No printer installed...

I suddenly have problems printing from any application in Vista - including all Office 2007 apps. I have 4 printers (all HP) installed (1 local and 3 network), and one of the network printers is the default printer, and marked as such.

Still when I try to print from ie. Adobe Reader I get a Vista dialogbox saying that no printer is installed on the system. When I try to print from any Office app I get the normal print dialogbox, and I can see the selected default printer in the top drop-down field - but when I press Ok to print I get a Vista dialogbox saying that no default printer is selected - in both cases Vista is wrong, because all printers are installed adn a default IS selected - and they work, too - listen to this: When I select the properties of ANY of the installed printers, and press the button "Print test page" it prints a test page just fine. It just doesn't work from within ANY application. It used to work but just stopped... In the process task list I see a LOT (btwn 10 and 500) of processes running under the name of "splwow.exe" ("Thunking Spooler APIS from 32 to 64 Process") - I think the number of processes increases every time I try to print - but I'm not sure, though. I have NO idea what this is...but it slowly kills my Dell Laptop, Lattitude E4300. Don't know if the two things are connected - but the process issues is new as well...

I have tried to delete all printers, and re-install with new drivers etc. - no difference. I have re-started and re-started and re-installed for days - nothing helps... I'm getting desperate now, cause I need to print. I'm considering going back to XP, cause Vista 64 sure sucks...

Has anyone experienced this - any fix or hints... Anything, please.

BR Martin, Denmark