Print Spooler Restart

Question

I am trying to install a printer. During the setup the installer stops the Print Spooler service and when it goes to restart the service, the service gets stuck on starting. When I cancel the installation the service goes back to operating normally... I've had the printer installed before and it worked fine, but it just decided on Friday morning to stop working and one of the fixes I tried was to remove the printer to try and reinstall it and now I'm stuck. Why would this be happening and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

The primary component of the printing interface is the print spooler. The print spooler is an executable file that manages the printing process. Here are few things that you can try:

Method 1: You will need to clear spooler files and restart the spooler service.  

1. Open Run dialog (Windows Key +R) and type Services.mscto open Windows Services.
2. In the Services list, double-tap (or double-click) Print Spooler. Select Stop > OK.
3. Open Run dialog once again and type %WINDIR%\system32\spool\printers, select the file folder in the search results, and then delete all files in the folder.
4. Open Windows Services once again as you did in step 1.
5. In the Services list, double-tab (or double-click) Print Spooler.
6. Select Start, and in the Startup Type list, make sure that Automatic is selected, and then select OK.

Method 2: You can follow the steps provided in the article: Fix printer connection and printing problems in Windows 10.

Hope it helps,