How to enable or disable Print Spooler Service on Windows 10

The Print Spooler is software built into the Windows operating system that temporarily stores print jobs in the computer’s memory until the printer is ready to print them. This service spools print jobs and handles interactions with the printer. If you turn off this service, you won’t be able to print or see your printers.

In some circumstances, you may need to stop and/or restart the service. In this post, we will show you three ways to enable or disable Print Spooler Service on Windows 10.

Enable or Disable Print Spooler Service

The following are the ways you can achieve this task;

1. Via Services
2. Via Command Prompt
3. Via System Configuration

Let’s see the description of each of the methods.

1] Enable or disable the Print Spooler Service via Services

Do the following:

• Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
• In the Run dialog box, type services.msc and hit Enter to open Services.
• In the Services window, scroll and locate the Print Spooler service.
• Double-click on the entry to open its properties window.
• In the properties window, on the General tab, move to the second section titled Service status section and click the Start button in order to enable the service.
• To disable this specific service, click the Stop button.

2] Enable or disable the Print Spooler Service via Command Prompt

Do the following:

• Invoke the Run dialog.
• In the Run dialog box, type cmd and then press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to open Command Prompt in admin/elevated mode.
• In the command prompt window, type the command below and hit Enter to enable the Print Spooler service.

net start spooler

• To disable the service, type the command below and hit Enter.

net stop spooler

You can now exit CMD prompt.

3] Enable or disable the Print Spooler Service via System Configuration

Do the following:

• Invoke the Run dialog.
• In the Run dialog box, type msconfig and hit Enter to open System Configuration utility.
• In the launched console, switch to the Services tab, the middle one, and locate the Print Spooler service.
• To enable Print Spooler service, check the box, and then click the Apply button.
• To disable Print Spooler service, uncheck the box and then click the Apply button.

A reboot of the machine is very necessary for this method because the changes will be accomplished accurately after rebooting.

This post will be helpful if The Print Spooler Service is not running on your computer.

That’s it!