How do I get my print spooler to be running each time my computer boots?

Factual Questions
1

I have WinXP Home SP3, on a rather old Dell Dimension desktop. I have AVG running always, did a full disk scan a couple of days ago, found nothing but some tracking cookies. Also run Spybot and AdAware alternating weeks. Again, nothing of significance ever found.

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This problem started immediately after I tried a print-to-pdf program called Polestar Virtual Printer, so I suspect it of doing Something Evil to my computer.

Anyway, here’s where I am. (Sorry this is long, but I don’t know what I can leave out, and what might be telling.)

I have a wp program I’ve used for years called “Rough Draft.” It has never given me any problems.

I DLed and installed Polestar Virtual Printer and gave it a try. After a few experiments I decided it wasn’t what I was looking for and used windows ‘Add/Remove Programs’ in the Control Panel to remove the program.

The next time I tried to use RoughDraft it refused to start, saying there must be a printer installed for it to run. The note helpfully suggested that if I didn’t have a printer attached to this computer (and I don’t, haven’t had one for five years) I could simply install ‘any’ printer.

I went to Printers&Faxes under the control panel. It listed no printers (before it had the two printers that used to be attached to the computer) and the only item was ‘Add printer.’

When I click that, it informs me it can’t run because the Print Spooler isn’t running.

After some searching the help files, I found ‘services’ under Start/Programs/Start Menu/Administrative tools.

Scrolling through the list I found that ‘print spooler’ was set to disabled. I clicked on it and set it to ‘automatic’, which I thought meant it would start on bootup. (?)

After doing this, the ‘status’ column in the services showed the Print Spooler was ‘started.’

After that, I was able to start RoughDraft and everything seemed normal.

However the next time I tried to start RoughDraft (the computer was shut down in between) I got the same message about no printer. Going back under services I find the Print Spooler is set to ‘automatic’ but there’s no ‘started’ in the status column. (I scrolled through the whole list of services – every single other one that is set to automatic had ‘started’ in the status column.)

So…why isn’t my print spooler starting automatically? I can work around it by going through the services panel, clicking on the print spooler and manually telling it to start, but this is rather a PITA. I want it to go back to running all the time as it used to. :frowning:

Thank you for any help!

2

Polestar may have left some remnants on your machine that are causing problems. Check the installed services and see if there’s some kind of “Polestar” service that can be removed (or at least disabled).

Look in your Event Viewer (both system and application logs) for errors with the print spooler (spoolsvc.exe), this may tell you the name of the interfering app which you can then search your hard drive for.

You can try repairing the Windows install from the XP CD. If the problem is relatively recent you may be able to just roll back your machine to the previous working state (restore point from a date when you know all was well).

3

I haven’t done desktop support for awhile, but is it maybe that spooler dosen’t start unless there is a printer installed? Add a printer, and reboot. See if the spooler services runs then.

-Otanx

4

Add a shortcut to your spooler program into this folder.

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

It should start every time you start the computer.

5

Thank you for replying!

I’ve read through the list of services, and couldn’t find anything suspicious. Of course, virtually all of them are mysterious to me. :o

Woo! Another neat feature I knew nothing about. On scanning the system log I find a pair of errors occuring over and over – looks like each time I start the computer. (Though I can’t be sure, because I don’t use this computer every day or on any regular time schedule.)

The earlier says: Timeout (30000 milliseconds) waiting for Print Spooler to connect.

The second (the same second or one second later) says: The Print Spooler service failed to start due to following error: The service did not reposnd to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Which to me seems to say, the print spooler did not start because the print spooler did not start.

Is it possible (let me demonstrate my amazing ignorance) that the problem is simply that it’s taking too long to get that .exe to run? As I said, this computer is OOOOOLD, like 2001/2002. Do hard drives, well, slow down? Not in rpm but in it taking longer to read from them somehow?

Perhaps the installation/removal of the other program is a red herring? I noticed the problem immediately after doing that, but I cannot say how long before that I had last started Rough Draft. This computer is our backup one, I only use it when the main one is tied up with something else, mainly hubby playing some game. Which is why it doesn’t have any printer, they’re connected to the newer one.

Er. I have the disk, but it’s from way back when XP first came out. Can I do the ‘repair’ without eliminating all the zillions of updates and installed Service Packs and so forth done since then?

6

Thank you for trying to help. :slight_smile:

Well, after I manually started the print spooler the ‘printer&fax’ thing showed two installed printers. (The ones from before reappeared.) I did the ‘add printer’ thing anyway, and ‘added’ another, randomly chosen. It seemed to successfully add that printer, at least, showed the third printer in the list, but upon rebooting I was back to spooler not running and no printers listed.

Started the spooler manually again, and again the printers appeared in the list – all three of them now.

I didn’t actually add a printer in the real sense. It’s hard to get at the connections to the printers downstairs, and I didn’t want to run out and buy a new one just now.

7

I did this … and it worked! At least, it did on reboot just now. :smiley:
Which leaves it mysterious: why would the computer be able to start it due to a shortcut in the start folder when it can’t do it as an ‘automatic’ startup service? But hey, it works! Assuming it will work the same when starting from the computer being turned off.

So…thank you!
BTW, someone else suggested that maybe a registry ‘cleaner’ program would fix the problem, but also added that those can be ‘dangerous.’

Given the report about it being a timeout problem, does that make it likely or unlikely that a registry problem is behind it? If so, do you think I should try one? Or just be happy that we’ve worked around the problem and let it go?

Thanks again to you all!

8

Expanding this for any or multiple services, create a text file called “StartServices.txt” and save it in the root of your C: drive. Edit the text file and type in lines that look like this:
net start “Print Spooler”

Put each troublesome service on its own separate line. Put the name of the service in quotes and get the exact name from the “services” list in computer management.

Rename the file to “StartServices.bat” and put a shortcut to it in the “All Users” start button “Startup” group. Voila!

9

I gave you a work around which I thought would give you the least problems trying to counter what the other program messed up. I had another thing to try but I don’t want to explain it and it was less likely to work if the automatic setting you used already failed. The start up folder is the last thing Windows starts so was most likely to succeed. I won’t try to help you modify the registry.

10

I would roll-back the OS (using restore) to a date before you installed that Polestar app.

11

Agreed.

12

Whoops, I see I forgot to reply to one suggestion – yes, using Restore should have been my first reaction. What can I say? I’ve never had to use it before, and it simpy didn’t occur to me. By the time someone suggested it here, I no longer had one old enough to work.

(I’ve got a small disk = not many restoration points, and I was busy trying out a whole bunch of programs, many of which triggered creation of restoration points all by themselves.)

On the bright side, putting that link into my start up folder has worked perfectly for the past five days or so, so Good Enough. :wink: