XP taking over HP printer driver control

An associate took the plunge and purchased the latest offering from Gateway with Windows XP Profesional.
Of course, XP took over the driver functions for the HP printer. This was OK until printing from Auto Cad.
She downloaded the latest drivers from the HP site and these worked when configured.
But, whenever she reboots, XP takes over again. I told her it probably had to do with a boot file such as autoexec.bat or command.com.
I figured Tech Republic had probably already encountered this problem somewhere along the way. If so, where's the page?