The Windows spooler is an operating system service that manages print job. It serves as an intermediary between relatively fast file transferring and relatively slow printing process. The document queue accepts and holds the document files and the print manager lets users manage this queue, add and remove files or change the order of documents sent to the printer. It also let manage multiple printers connected to one PC or to different computers on the network.
The print subsystem is a combination of the spooler services provided by the operating system with drivers for some particular printers, and it is far from being perfect due to this design with elements that aren’t 100% compatible and usually aren’t updated at the same moment. The print spooler service might fail for different reasons, and when it fails, it presents the error message that might point to some specific print spooler problem and more often this message just informs about the Windows spooler service being stopped by the OS for some unknown reason that the system can’t handle safely.
So, what one can do if the print spooler error occurred, and how to make Windows spooler subsystem work without significant problems in the heavy-load network environment?
There are some certain procedures that might help to fix the error and restore this service quickly. If you are facing a real situation with Windows spooler error and need to fix your print spooler service as soon as possible, then you can download a tool for the fast, safe and effective automated solution that will fix a wide range of different problems related to print spooler service.
Download Fix Wizard
Optionally, you can look at different pages on this site for the particular error message and the situation. You can find instructions for common manual fix procedures on the page Print spooler crash – You can fix it yourself.
This page is more concerned with the Windows spooler service settings in the work environment for reliable work with minimum of possible errors and lengthy fixing processes that disrupt normal work flow and compromise productivity.
Let’s look at simple example. If there is couple of printers on the network and a workstation that sends a lot of document to some particular network printer, then there will be a greater chance of the document being corrupted during the transfer and cause corruption in the print spooler service on the host. This host is often serving all the printers and all print jobs in the office. In this case all the documents sent to one printer get frozen in the server’s print queue.
If possible, it is better to move printing from the network printer server to the workstation that produces heavy traffic on the network just to send documents to the printer mostly serving this particular workstation. The solution is quite obvious – one of printers should be hooked to this workstation as a local. It might be still connected to the network, but the network will be freed from the heavy load of unnecessary transfers. Then if the spooler service fails on this PC, the server is not affected and all the other printing will continue without disruption.
If your printer is installed as a network printer and receives prints over IP address on the TCP/IP port, then the spooler problem might be related to the network settings. It is the case when you install new printer but aren’t able to print, and error message is popping up.
Try to configure TCP/IP port. To do this, click Start, open Control Panel and click Printers and Faxes. Right-click the icon of your printer. Select Properties in the menu and open Ports tab. Click on Configure Port button, turn off SNMP Status Enabled, and click OK. Reboot your PC or start print spooler service from Services.
If the problem with error messages is persistent, then it might be caused by corrupted drivers. They affect the print spooler service performance, or bring sluggish results to the pages printed. One bad driver might spoil the whole process. To protect the system print spooler from crashing and to minimize print spooler malfunction, it is better to use only high quality drivers from known and well-established vendors. If you install or update your operating system it is possibly a right time for updating your hardware drivers to prevent possible incompatibility issues introduced by new standards unused with old drivers.
There is other common cause for print spooler error – the malware activity. Run full system scan with your antivirus even before you will concern about drivers since the driver corruption might be caused by the viruses and rootkits on your system.
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