How to restart a locked-up Print Spooler in Windows

Home/Premium Editions of Windows:

Option 1 – Attempt to save the  documents in the query

Open Elevated Command Prompt:

net stop spooler

net start spooler

 

Option 2 – Delete the spooled documents

net stop spooler
del /q c:\windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*
net start spooler

Option 3 –

Look for spoolsv Windows Error Reports located in:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue

 

There is a text based “report.wer” file that you can open in Notepad.  There is normally a Faulting Module listed (normally an outdated driver).

 

Professional+above:

Utilitize the Printer Management (%systemroot%\system32\printmanagement.msc) utility to narrow down the issue further.

PCL XL Error – Printing To A Network Shared Printer

I had a user that was receiving an error when printing to a network shared printer.

It was a Windows Server 2003 Print Server, latest PCL6 drivers. Desktop was running Windows 7 x32.

When a larger document was sent to the printer (sometimes as small as 20 pages, large as 70 pages), it would print the document, but only partially.

The job would stop and would print a page labeled “PCL XL error Subsystem: … ”

 

Resolution:

On the Windows Server, I edited the properties of the printer that was being shared out.

On the “Advanced Tab”, deselect the checkbox for “Enable Advanced Printing Features”.

Note: Depending on the printer driver, this may remove some features from the software driver.