Well, the original error started happening long before we got the new device so there shouldn't have been anything wrong with the alias of the device. I could be missing something, I'm not sure. For now, it seems that we have either unwittingly solved that particular error or we are now hitting the new error before the original one can populate.
As for the new error, we also tried the XP hotfix that has been linked in several places that I've found regarding that particular error and that doesn't seem to have helped either. If anything it made the error happen more frequently.
I'll pass on this information and see where our software folks want to go with it.