Print Spooler service is basically a windows service and helps to give the command to the printer for printing. However, it helps in managing all the print queues. But sometimes the print spooler gets stopped and starts showing the printing errors. Due to this most of the printing issues get caused by print spooler error. So, let’s learn some more about it.

Why do you need a Print Spooler?

Print spooler helps in managing the multiple print requests and sends them to the printer one by one for printing. We all are familiar that printers take a bit of time to print; therefore the print spooler service keeps all the pending documents in the queue and then sends them to the printer one by one when the first document gets printed.

What are the causes of Print Spooler Error?

There might be various reasons for causing Print Spooler error problems. Sometimes viruses target the print spooler services and corrupt them. Also, it can corrupt the registry of print spooler service because it will affect most of the users who use the printer to print.

Most of the users want to take a print out however they get the error message “Print Spooler service has been stopped so try to restart the service first. Thus, it is recommended that you need to restart the device first. Also, it is advisable to protect the PC with good antivirus software.

The print spooler error can get caused due to the various reasons like:

1: There might be many pending, or corrupt files.

2: Sometimes deleting your spooler files can clear the pending print jobs.

3: Local Printer Spooler is not running and a lot more.

How to Fix Print Spooler Error in Windows 10?

It’s quite frustrating when you give your printer to command some important documents and suddenly it got stuck? Then, what you will do? Well, in this case when the printer resists printing on Windows 10 then the print spooler service error occurs and most of us are not aware of this term and its solutions.

So here, let’s get started with its troubleshooting methods:

Solution 1 – Check Your System for virus:

There is no doubt, that malware can cause tremendous trouble in a computer. It can corrupt the system files or can change any values in the registry. However, the possibilities of creating issues of malware are endless.

Thus, it is recommended that once you will realize that your computer has significant errors then it’s better to install anti-malware like Malwarebytes, or some other malware applications. Also, you need to conduct s system scan to flash out any malware and resolve the print spooler stopping issue.

You can follow the given steps in order to check your System for virus:

1: Firstly, you need to run a security scan.

2: You can run a security scan by using some security software to check for viruses and malware.

3: With the help of the anti-malware application you need to remove existing viruses.

4: Now, update your security system.

Solution 2 – Stop Print Spooler Service:

Sometimes it happens that print spooler service can become a cause for this issue. Therefore, you need to check and clear if there are print queues left on your printer spooler folder.

To perform this step we first need to stop the print spooler service:

1: First, press the Windows + R button and then type services.msc and then press Ok.

2: Now, scroll down and then right-click on Print spooler service and then click Stop.

3: Here you need to navigate through this path C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS

4: Next, you need to delete all files in the Printers folder.

5: Now, disconnect the printer from the computer.

6: Next, you need to go to windows services and then Start the Print spooler service.

7: Now, plug the printer back in again and check whether the printer prints the pages without any error.

Solution 3 – Restart Print Spooler:

In order to restart the Print spooler, learn these following steps:

1: Firstly, you need to press Windows +R and then type services.msc and hit enter or press the Ok button.

2: Here when the service windows get open then you need to locate the Print spooler and then restart it.

3: Now, right-click on Print spooler service and then select Restart from the context menu.

4: Next, you need to give the print command to your printer again and then check if you can fix Printer spooler errors on Windows 10 or not. And, if it doesn’t resolve your problem then go to the next step.

Solution 4 – Run Printer Troubleshooter:

While running the Printer troubleshooters help in detecting the latest printer drivers and then fix or update them if you have connectivity issues. So, in order to perform Run Printer Troubleshooter, you need to follow these steps

1: First, you need to press Windows + I to open Windows Settings app.

2: Now, click Update and Security.

3: Next, then select troubleshoot, then you need to look for and then select the Printer.

4: Run the Troubleshooter.

5: Once completed the troubleshooting process you can Restart the windows.

6: Now, again check if there is any problem with the print spooler service.

Solution 5 – Update your Printer Drivers:

As we all are familiar that computer needs to be up-to-date all the time. While installing the Windows update helps in keeping your computer updated with the latest system updates as well as drivers and this can also help in resolving the print spooler keep stopping Windows 10 issue.

You must need to check Windows update manually and this helps in ensuring that you have the latest updates.

1: In search type Windows Updates.

2: Now, click on Windows updates.

3: Next, you need to click on Check for updates and then install the latest windows updates.

Solution 6 – Modify your Registry:

The registry can help in solving the print spooler and its stopping problems. You can modify registry keys or can delete the unnecessary registry keys from the registry and then correct the Print spooler registry keys.

Perform these following steps to modify your registry:

1: First, you need to open Windows registry editor and then press Windows Key + R and then type Regedit.

2: Here when the registry editor gets open, you need to navigate to the following registry keys:

For Windows 32:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPrintEnvironmentsWindows NT x86PPrint Processors

For Windows 64

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPrintEnvironmentsWindows NT x64Print Processors

3: Now, delete all keys except in print or you can also right-click the key that you want to remove and then choose Delete from the menu.

4: Next, close the Registry Editor and then restart Windows, and then restart the print spooler service.

Solution 7 – Reset Winsock:

Here has been listed some steps to reset Winsock and these are:

1: First, click and then type the command in the Start search box and then right-click cmd.

2: Now, click Run as Administrator and then press the continue button.

3: Here you need to type netsh winsock reset at the command prompt and then you need to press Enter.

4: Now, type exit and then hit enter.

Solution 8 – Create a new User Account:

You may create a new user account and then check if the issue occurs in the new user account:

1: Firstly, you need to click on search icon and type Control Panel and then click on the Control Panel.

2: Now, you need to click on User accounts.

3: Next, you need to click on Manage another account.

4: Next, you need to click on Add a new user in PC settings and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.

5: Once it gets completed then you need to log in to the new user account and check if the issue still persists there or not.

Some other steps for creating a new user account:

1: First, choose Start->Control Panel, and in the resulting window you need to click and Add or Remove User account link.

2: Here the Manage accounts dialog box appears.

3: Now, click and create a New Account.

4: Next, you need to enter an account name and then you need to select the type of account you want to create.

5: Now, click and Create the Account button and finally your account have been set.

Solution 9 – Fix with Command Prompt:

In order to fix the command Prompt try to follow these steps:

1: First, open Start.

2: Now, search for the command prompt and then right-click the top result, and then select the Run as Administrator option.

3: Now, you need to type the following command to stop the print spooler and then delete the printer folder content and restart the printer spooler and hit enter.

4: Once you complete this step then only you should be able to send a print job to the printer and this time the printer should surely work and if not then continue with the next step.

Solution 10 – Restart your Windows:

In order to restart your windows look for these steps:

1: First, locate and then click the power icon in the lower-left corner of the lock screen.

2: Here, you will see the icon i.e furthest to the right side.

3: Now, select Restart from the menu that appears.

Solution 11: Re-install Printer Driver:

However, if none of the above solutions works then the problem is most likely related to a corrupted printer driver that has been installed on your computer. Therefore, you need to try uninstalling the printer and printer software from the computer to scratch:

1: First, open Control Panel, Programs, and then Programs and features.

2: Now, you need to look for the installed printer driver and then select Uninstall.

3: Next, restart the Windows in order to completely remove the driver from your PC.

4: Here you need to obtain updated software from your printer manufacturers and then re-install only the items that you need.

5: Finally, you can check if it helps in fixing the print spooler problem.

Solution 12: Uninstall unnecessary printers:

While installing more than one printer in your operating system can sometimes cause serious issues with the print spooler and its printing services:

However, if you see that the print spooler keeps stopping on Windows 10 then you might need to uninstall all the printers that you don’t want to use.

For un-installing unnecessary printers learn these given steps:

1: First, click on your Windows 10 start menu.

2: Now, locate the Settings and then click on it.

3: In the settings option you need to search for Printers and Scanners.

4: Next, select and click on the printer that you want to remove and then select Remove.

5: When you remove the printers that you don’t need to use, then you need to restart your PC and then check if the printer working function is performing well or not.

Solution 13: Remove Duplicate Printer driver:

Various users have reported that you can fix the print spooler problem by simply deleting the duplicate drivers and to remove the duplicate drivers you will need to use the Print management tool:

1: Firstly, press Windows Key + S.

2: Here on the search box, you need to type print management and then select Print Management from the list.

3: Now, you need to open the print management and on the left pane you need to select All Drivers.

4: On the list of all Printers drivers, you need to notice the duplicated drivers and then right-click and choose Remove Driver Package.

5: Finally, you need to remove the duplicate drivers and then check if the issue has been fixed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What are the methods for fixing the Print Spooler error?

Ans: Here has been listed some methods for fixing Print spooler error and these are:

1: Firstly, you need to delete all the print jobs in the computer folder.

2: Now, move towards the Services and then find Print Spooler and then right-click and now select Start.

3: Next, you need to open the program you closed and then try and print the document you want.

Q2: How you can fresh Print Spooler?

Ans: Refer to these below-given steps to fresh print spooler:

1: Click on the Windows button.

2: Now, type services.msc in the start search box.

3: Next, click Services in the program list.

4: Locate and then right-click on Print spooler and then click Stop from the drop-down menu.

5: Again, right-click the Print spooler and then click Start from the drop-down menu.

Q3: What are the steps for restarting the local Printer spooler?

Ans: Following has been explained the steps for restarting the local printer spooler:

1: Scroll down to the list and then click on print spooler service.

2: Now, click on Restart the service.

3: Here the windows will attempt to start the service.

4: Once the printer spooler status starts running then the print spooler service gets started.

Q4: How to clear print cache?

Ans: In order to clear print cache, perform these following steps:

1: Firstly, type the control panel into the search box.

2: Now, type printer in the search box.

3: Next, View Devices and Printers.

4: Right-click on your Printer.

5: Now, click and see what’s printing.

6: Next, click on the Printer in the menu bar.

7: Select and cancel all the documents.

Q5: How to fix the print queue issue?

Ans: To fix print queue issues learn these steps:

1: Firstly, you need to cancel all your documents.

2: Now, you need to restart the spooler service.

3: Next, check your printer drivers.

4: Make use of different user account.

Q6: How you can troubleshoot a printer problem?

Ans: Follow these steps to troubleshoot printer problems:

1: Firstly, you need to make sure that the printer is turned on and it is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your device.

2: Now, you need to “Run a Printer power cycle”.

3: Set your printer as a default printer.

4: Clear the print queue.

5: Now, reset the service that manages the printing queue.

6: Next, remove and re-add your printer to your device.

7: Now, restart your PC and once the restart gets finished then it means that you have troubleshot the printer problem.

Final words

Nowadays, the print spooler problems have become quite common but they can be easily eliminated by following the above-given steps defined in this article. You can follow these methods in order to fix the print spooler issues. However, if these defined methods won’t be able to solve your problem then the next step that you can do is to contact our experienced team of experts.

We have got relevant experience in solving printer-related problems. So, you can feel assured that if you contact our team then you will surely get the desired results within a specific amount of time. You can communicate with us via chat and tell us your problems that you are facing with your printer. We make sure that you will get the optimal results from us and our team will be able to solve your queries.

We hope that this article has really helped you in finding the best troubleshooting steps for resolving the annoying printer spooler error. And, finally, your printer allows printing multiple documents. Still, in case of any queries feel free to contact us and tell us in our comment section that- Is our article helps in resolving the Print spooler error? We would love to hear from you!!!