How to Successfully Restart the Print Spooler Service Using PowerShell

Описание: Learn how to troubleshoot and restart the Print Spooler service using PowerShell, ensuring smooth printing operations on your Windows machine.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/65726017/ asked by the user 'octopusgrabbus' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/448715/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/65727439/ provided by the user 'Lee_Dailey' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/3080908/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Successfully Restart the Print Spooler Service Using PowerShell

If you’ve been using PowerShell to manage your Windows services, you may have encountered issues while trying to restart the Print Spooler. This essential Windows service is responsible for managing print jobs, and difficulties in handling it can disrupt your printing tasks. If you find yourself unable to restart the Print Spooler, you're not alone. Let's break down how to address this issue step by step.

Understanding the Problem

The Print Spooler can be tricky to manage through PowerShell. In a specific scenario, users have resorted to attempting to obtain the real service name and check its status. Here’s a breakdown of the initial code they started with:

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Despite confirming the service's status, workflows leveraging commands to restart it resulted in persistent errors, such as:

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This can be frustrating, especially if you can restart the service through the Services management console but not through scripts.

Solution to Restart Print Spooler

The solution hinges on ensuring that the script is being executed with the right permissions and making use of the correct commands. Below is a method that successfully restarts the Print Spooler on Windows 10, based on user feedback.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Run PowerShell as Administrator: Before executing any commands, ensure that you open PowerShell with administrative privileges. Right-click the PowerShell icon and select Run as Administrator.

Check the Current Status of Print Spooler: Use the following command to get the current service status. This ensures we know if we need to start or stop it.

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Stop the Service (if running): If the service is running, you can stop it before attempting to start again. This command checks the service status:

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Start the Print Spooler: After ensuring the service is stopped, restart it with the following command:

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Verify the Service Status: Finally, confirm that the Print Spooler has restarted successfully with:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

You should see an output like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Troubleshooting Tips

Ensure Correct Permissions: Always ensure you have administrative rights when managing services via PowerShell.

Check for Typos: Make sure there are no typos in service names or commands.

Error Message Review: When encountering errors, always review the detailed messages provided in the catch blocks to identify the root cause.

Conclusion

Restarting the Print Spooler can often be an exercise filled with frustration, but with the right approach and proper permissions, it can be done effectively using PowerShell. By following these steps and keeping the troubleshooting tips in mind, you should find that managing the Print Spooler becomes much smoother.

Feel free to share your experiences or further questions in the comments below!