Print Spooler nightmares?

Got a print spooler that won’t start, or crashes everytime you start it. Well here’s a last resort fix that should bring it back up. However this will remove all printer drivers, print monitors, and printers off of the machine. If you are able to access the registry on the machine you can at least write down the name, share name, ip, and printer driver used for each of your printers (see below for those instructions).  This instructions are for Windows Server 2003.

Write down your current printers, drivers, and share names (if you can access the registry)

1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

2. There you will see a listing of all the printers loaded on that machine.

3. Click on one of each of them, and you will see the NAME, PORT, and SHARE NAME of that printer.

4. You will need to write them down for each printer.

Fixing and Cleaning the Spooler with CLEANSPL.exe

1. Download the Windows Server Resource Kit at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&DisplayLang=en

2. Now run the cleanspl.exe tool that came with resource kit.

3. Remove everything except these two, Standard TCP/IP Port, and BJL Language Monitor.

4. The tool will tell you to reboot your machine, reboot it.

5. After the reboot the spooler should be running once again, now comes the hard part of having to reinstall the drivers, and printers.

1. Clinton says:

   August 5, 2009 at 12:26 pm

   What about backing up the printers using something like print migrator from Microsoft? I love that tool. I guess it would depend on why its crashing huh? I like that cleanspl app though, thats cool. Thanks!
2. Jason Mohan says:

   August 5, 2009 at 12:32 pm

   We couldn’t get the print migration tool to work due to the spooler problem. I’ve used the print migrator for my citrix print server environment, and love it. It’s a great tool, especially in testing problematic print drivers on another server.