Printer Help

[panici33]

Elder,

My printer doesn't work. I keep getting a "print spooler not in service" message. Any ideas?

I tried to re-install the printer but that message came up before I could do so.

[Bowtie]

right click on my computer -> select manage ->click the plus on services and applications and go to services -> find the printer spool service and right click on it -> click on properties -> in the printer spool service properties click the "Start" button and also under a drop down menu change it from "Disabled" to "Automatic", you may have to reboot before you can reinstall the drivers.

[panici33]

Did this, everything went well until the last part then I received an error that read:

"Could not start the Print Spooler service on local computer. Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start."

[Bowtie]

Click Start, Run and type the following:

CMD /K SC CONFIG SPOOLER DEPEND= RPCSS

[Bowtie]

right click on my computer -> select manage ->click the plus on services and applications and go to services -> find the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and make sure it is started and then repeat the start process for the printer spool

[panici33]

Daaaaannnng! You're good. It worked; it's amazing people actually know what a print spooler and remote procedure call are.

[Bowtie]

To be fair I couldn't remember all of the command so I had to google it to find it all, but being an IT guy, I have seen this plenty of times before and it seems like Lexmark printers are the ones that cause this problem.

[ElderGeek]

Thanks for jumping in there and helping out Bowtie! I was late to the party on this one.

Just for future reference if anyone gets a message similar to:

"Could not start the [Whatever] service on local computer. Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start."

What this means is another service, not the [Whatever] service, is not started or was not configurred to start.

Following the directions above to navigate to the Services Snap In, double click [Print Spooler], then select the "Dependancies" tab. The upper window shows that the Print Spooler Service "depends on" the RPC Service to be started before it will start. In this case, this is what generated the error Panici experienced because the RPC was not started.

The lower window also shows what services "depend" on the Print Spooler to be started. Not all services have dependancies, but if they do, this is were to find them.

Probably more info than anyone wanted, but now you have the How to fix it, and the Why it was broken.

[Bowtie]

No problem, always willing to help where I can.