Fix Printer Spooler Vista

Driver support for Windows Vista is better than it used to be, but there’s still a lingering, and vexing, problem with printer drivers. Specifically, if you install an older print driver, or a print driver not vetted for use with Windows Vista, it might crash the entire Print Spooler service. This will cause the Print Spooler service to restart over and over again (leading to numerous annoying error messages), and because of that, you won’t be able to print anything. To make matters worse, you won’t even be able to get to the Printers Control Panel because the Print Spooler keeps crashing.

This is a vexing problem, but there’s a very abrupt way to fix it.

Open up an Explorer window, and proceed to this directory:
c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers

Once there, delete the directory named w32x86. (Note that this only applies to the 32 bit versions of Windows Vista.) Deleting this directory will wipe out all the printer drivers currently installed on your computer, and you’ll need to reinstall them all. This is, however, preferable to having no print functionality at all.

After the directory is deleted, restart your computer. The Print Spooler service should no longer crash randomly, though you will need to add your printers once more. Make sure to use a Vista-compatible driver to avoid future crashes.