Office97 & HP4500 & Winnt hangups

My techs are experiencing problems with Office97 print preview in Excel locking up the system when HP4500 printer is the default printer. The problem was duplicated at our work site and repeated emails to HP and Microsoft have been unanswered. My techs can’t find any info on this phenomenom on the web? We are a Windows NT shop and yes, SR2 was applied.