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I'm encountering a strange problem. A few days ago, my primary printer (Samsung ML-2950) unexpectedly stopped working with a "0 % toner" message. One file was in the print queue at that time. Right after that incident, it became impossible to open "Devices and Printers" or even right-clicking on anything in Explorer - Explorer would immediately stop responding.

I checked the error log and found that Explorer crashes waiting for spoolsv.exe, so I tried (as Admin) to clear the print queue by going to %WINDIR%\system32\spool\PRINTERS, but I was denied access to PRINTERS - and since I can't right-click on it because that crashes Explorer again, I couldn't even figure out who Windows would give access to that directory...

I then tried the Troubleshooting wizard, selected Printer problems, and the wizard immediately got stuck at "Checking for spooling service errors..." and has been stuck there since.

Any idea what I could do now? How can I access an object's properties without right-clicking it, for example?

Tim Pietzcker
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1 Answers1

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OK, I think I've somewhat got this covered:

I opened services.msc, stopped the print spooling service, deactivated it and then rebooted.

Then I was able to delete the contents of %WINDIR%\system32\spool\PRINTERS. I reactivated the print spooling service, rebooted again, and now everything seems to work as long as I keep my Samsung printer turned off. When it's on, it appears to confuse the print spooler. Well, let's see what happens when I buy and install a new toner cartridge...will update in a few days.

Tim Pietzcker
  • 2,730