A less technical solution may be to simply right-click on the printer in the Devices and printers window, and choose troubleshoot.
how to restart the spooler
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Anonymous
Good afternoon I am trying to print but I get a message that I need to start my spooler. How do I do that ? Can you please help me?
Kaney******@yahoo.com
Maribel
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
2 answers
Sort by: Most helpful
-
Anonymous
2021-03-12T14:54:04+00:00 -
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(272, 44%, 36%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EL%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
LemP 74,925 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator2021-03-11T20:34:22+00:00 Generally, the print spooler should be started automatically.
If the print spooler has stopped, that usually means that there's something wrong, often a corrupted print job. What happened to your system shortly before this problem happened?
The following procedure will clear out any "stuck" print jobs and restart the print spooler.
- Open an Elevated Command Prompt (click Start, type Command Prompt in the Search box, right-click on the link to Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator"; respond as needed to the UAC prompt)
- Type the following in the black Command Prompt window and press Enter after each line
net stop spooler
del /Q "%windir%\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*"
net start spooler
exit
If the print spooler doesn't start, or if you get any error message, please provide the complete text of the error message. Please also mention the edition of Windows you have.