How to restart the print spooler in Windows 7

In Windows, the print spooler is the service that loads print jobs to be sent to the printer.  Sometimes this service can freeze or hang up, causing jobs to not get printed.  When this happens, you can often restart the print spooler to correct the issue.  This guide will show you how to restart the print spooler on a Windows 7 PC.

Click on the Windows button on the left side of the task bar (where the Start button used to be in Windows XP).  Type "services.msc" into the Search bar on the Start menu, then press <ENTER>.  The Services window will open shortly.

Scroll down the list of services until you get to Print Spooler.  To the left of the list of services you will see "Restart the service" with "Restart" displayed in blue; click on this text.  A status bar will appear showing the progress of the service, and once it completes, the print spooler will have been restarted.

If you don't see "Restart the service" when you click on Print Spooler, then your account does not have administrator rights.  You won't be able to restart the print spooler manually, but you can reboot the computer, which will restart the print spooler (and the other services).