userinit.exe Bad Image

I've tried looking this up in other places but I didn't exactly understand what the people were talking about so I'm going to make my own post so people can lower the techy-talk and help me out with my problem, since I'm not that great with computers.

We've had this problem with our laptop for a very long time, but I never thought to try and fix it. I just thought my dad would just eventually replace the laptop and I wouldn't have to worry about trying to fix it.

Anyway, after logging into Windows XP with the Owner name, I get an error message, before Windows even loads up the desktop and whatnot. It says exactly this...

"userinit.exe - Bad Image
The application or DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\WINSPOOL.DRV is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette."

Has anybody got an idea on how to fix this? I'd try to a system restore but I can't even get into Windows for anything. This happens right after trying to logon to Windows.

Please help.

:4-dontkno