Printing Issue: Windows says print spooler is not running

If you trying to print a document or PDF, and windows is telling you, "Operation on a printer cannot be completed. The Local Print Spooler service is not running. Please restart the spooler or restart machine." then this means one thing...spooler error!

Thankfully there is a 5 minute fix!

On the user's machine:

1. Give them administrative group access on the local machine.
   1. Right click on My Computer and choose "Manage"
   2. Click Local and Users and Groups
   3. Select Groups
   4. Select Administrators and add the user
2. Open a Command Prompt as administrator (Right click and choose run as administrator)
3. Open Start -> Run -> Services.msc and Start the Print Spooler Service
4. Enter the following:

   • del /Q C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*

   • Hit ENTER
5. This will clear all queues and fix any print spooler issues!

Update: If you'd like to create a batch file to accomplish this, paste the following into Notepad and save as filename.bat ("pause" can be removed if you don't want to see the results of the batch file):

net stop spooler del /Q C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.* net start spooler pause

Did this fix help you with your print spooler, or printer problems? Sound off in the comments below!