That did it!

After reboot, the Print Spooler Service was started.

When I opened up the printer box, there were already 3 printers in there, two of them from the last time I used this computer, so apparently the registry got corrupted sometime between now and then. I have no idea who, what, or when that happened, but some pretty deep scans before I started this whole process showed nothing.

Oh well, another arrow in my quiver, eh?

Thanks again!