It was suggested on another Microsoft newsgroup that I post my problem
here. I had set up my Win XP Home Edition PC running Word 97 to print
over a home network to an HP laser printer. Everything worked fine. The
PC to which the printer was attached had to go out for repair, so I
hooked it up to my PC as a local printer. IIRC, Windows found the plug
and play printer, and it was installed with its own icon in the
Printers folder. The other PC came back, and I had to revert to using
it over the network. Since then, everything is messed up. It takes
several minutes for the font list to appear, for the Printer properties
tab to display under Tools/Options, for a document to save, and for a
document to print. The other night I tried to save a simple text
document, and Word minimized on the taskbar with the only available
option Close. (All other grayed out.) I waited overmight but it stayed
the same. Finally I clicked Close, got the Windows "not responding"
dalog, hit End Task, and my document maximized.  Since similar behavior
occurs in Works word processor, I'm assuming this is bigger than a Word
problem. My research points to a printer driver problem. I've tried to
reinstall the driver locally, following the instructions in  KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=280821. But Windows keeps telling me
the port already exists. This is getting extremely frustrating, and my
attempts to resolve it have only made things worse, to where I've had
to use System Restore.

If anyone has a solution, I'd be very grateful. I'm almost ready to
spring for a new printer, only I'm afraid that will just make matters
worse.