You open a document and issue a command to print it. A printout should be coming out of your printer any minute, right? But after waiting and waiting, nothing is getting printed and you don’t know what’s going on.

Assuming that your printer is plugged and correctly connected to your PC, the problem probably is on the Printer Spooler. And when this component is not working – despite having rebooted and restarted your PC – then the culprit is most likely one of your printer drivers.

Before you start hunting for printer drivers, it’s important to note that you should only use printer device drivers that have been specifically written for your OS. For instance, if your PC is using Windows XP, then you should only use device drivers specific to Windows XP.

Don’t forget that device drivers are “translators” between your PC and your hardware device (in relevance to this article, between your PC and your printer). And different operating systems make use of different languages. You wouldn’t want a Spanish translator if you need to speak Chinese, do you?

Anyway, going back, most printing-related problems can be traced to outdated drivers. If you’re printer’s Printer Spooler is not functioning properly, you most likely have a printer driver for Windows 95, 98, or ME (when you’re already on Windows XP).

Here’s How You Can Remove Printer Drivers and Restart the Printer Spooler

1. From the Windows Start menu, click Printers and Faxes.
2. Delete the printer from the menu.
3. From the File menu, click Server Properties.
4. Select the Drivers tab.
5. Select the driver(s) listed and then click Remove.
6. From the Windows Start menu, click Run.
7. Type regedit and then click Ok.
8. Go to this Microsoft link to modify the Windows registry and remove printer driver specific keys. (Warning! Pls. don’t play with the Windows registry. If you delete the wrong thing, you may end up with MORE problems than when you started.)
9. Now from the Windows Start menu, click Run again.
10. Type cmd and then click Ok.
11. Type the following commands:

net stop spooler
net start spooler

12. Open Windows Explorer.
13. Go to %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\ (where %systemroot% means Windows or winnt) and delete the files that you see in this directory.
14. Now go to %systemroot%\system32\spool\drivers\w32×86, where folders 2 and/or 3 exist. (There may be other folders such as hp or cannon or whatever your printer brand is. Delete these folders.)
15. Delete the files and sub-folders in directories 2 and/or 3 (but NOT the folders themselves).
16. Do steps 10 and 11 to restart the printer spooler.
17. Restart your PC.

Do the above steps seem daunting? If you’re not sure what’s wrong with your printer and want an easy and hassle-free way to check if you have the right printer drivers, try this free driver download tool.