Printer spooler will not start Error 1053

Barneyboy48:

This is great! It works!

. . . until the next day, when SPOOLSV.EXE has reverted to 43 kB, and I have to do this fix all over agin!

How do you get it to STAY fixed?  Surely there's got to be a way!

Hi Timkens,

To be honest, although I have gone through the procedure and restarted the spooler, I have still not had an opportunity to hook a printer up and test it.  It greaves me to stay in sweating over my screen with the rare summer weather that we have been experiencing, so I've been making the most of it!

I would suggest that you direct your query, which, don't get me wrong, I am very interested in, to James3000.  James has had a measure of success and you could compare notes better with him.  Of course, I would love to be included in the conversation - I expect I haven't seen the last of my problems yet!

The other thing you could do is go on to the Microsoft Answers forum and ask the guy who came up with it, if  you can get an answer out of him now as he seems to have gone very quiet since I circulated his fix to other users in other forums.  For some strange reason he took his bat home when I did that even though I gave him all the glowing overwhelming credit for his contribution.

Let me know how you go on.

Brian 

Jamesy3000:

Since you verified the fix Barneyboy reported from Microsoft Answers, perhaps you have some insight into this:

Replacing SPOOLSV.EXE with the larger file, hidden in plain sight as SPOOLSV.EXE.ORG, did the job for me. . . .

. . . until the next day, when SPOOLSV.EXE has reverted to 43 kB, and I had to do this fix all over again!

It basically restores the smaller file every time I do a complete shutdown and restart.

How do you get it to STAY fixed?  Surely there's got to be a way!  Any thoughts? Barneyboy doesn't know.

I'm also in a position where I'm renaming the spoolsv.exe after EVERY reboot.  I've tried copying all spool files from a 'good' system over to this one but it doesn't matter - after a reboot it overwrites with the bad one, the Printer Spooler Service does start, rename, etc. etc.  Does anyone know a PERMANENT fix for this?  Thanks!!

I've been dealing with the same issue.  I've reformatted my hard drive a few times over with no positive results.  I've even replaced my hard drive with a fresh factory image hard drive and still the issue persist.  As of now my only option is to cease using Windows 7 and use Ubuntu for printing.  Since this appears to be a Microsoft problem, it only makes sense to use another operating system, Linux, and go from there.  This hopefully will prove to be a solution until Microsoft comes up with a solution and provides the fix in a Microsoft update.

I suspect the following Microsoft update to be responsible for corrupting the printer spooler.exe file:

Update for Windows (KB958488)

Installation date: ‎11/‎25/‎2011 6:17 PM

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Important

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Shared

More information:
http://support.microsoft.com

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com

Before this update was installed into my OS, I did not experience an issue with my printer spooler.  Note that this was the only Microsoft update that was installed onto my Windows 7 64-bit OS immediately after performing a hard drive reformat.  After the hard drive reformat, a pop up message appeared that showed this update needed to be repaired.  Once it was done with the process, an option to reboot my system was made available.  Before rebooting my system I went into services and saw that the printer spooler was properly functional.  After rebooting my system I went into services and confirmed that the printer spooler was now corrupt.  Remember, this only happened with the above Microsoft update being the ONLY update installed on my system.

I HAVE DISCOVERED THE MICROSOFT UPDATE THAT IS CAUSING THIS KNOWN PROBLEM!! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2533552/en-US 

Windows 7 (KB976902) to enable future updates

http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?form=MSHOME&mkt=en-us&setlang=en-us&q=KB976902

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-windows_update/windows-update-80073712-kb976902/69dcaa4f-a31d-4df3-95f0-2c134ef21d6a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_update/windows-7-kb976902-to-enable-future-updates/ebd18ad2-cae7-4513-91d1-35b45467446d

This update has plenty of known issues and now it can be confirmed to add the conflict witht the print spooler one of them.  The real issue is that once this update is downloaded and installed into your Microsoft OS, there is no way of unstalling it from your system.  So unfortunately the simple but not so simple solution to this problem is to perform a factory reformat of the hard drive and reinstall the OS.  After that, do not set your Windows update settings to automatically.  Only allow updates per your review.  Once you see this update present as available, DO NOT INSTALL IT!!!!!

By the way.  It may be possible for you to do a system restore point previous to installing this update.  Maybe.

I purchaseed my dell inspiron back in January and had the same issue. After much researched, I had given up. Then I decided to pay dell for their support service... they took over my pc and after an hour it was fixed. I wish I would have video taped it, because my system crashed and it happening again. Error code 1053: can't restart print spooler. Barneyboy48,, I tried to do it your way but under windows system 32 all I have is "spool". no (sppolsv.exe.org nor spoolsv.exe) What can i do now. Please and thanks.

I only have spoolsv and spoolss.dll,

and HP printer'

the same stupid error 1053,

any suggestions?

Hi, I had 1053 and this worked for me:

Run msconfig and disable all non MS services, restart.

Hope this helps.

Hi Thanks, sorry for my ignorance, but how do I run the config file?

Hi, click the Start button and type msconfig in the seacrh field.

Regards.

I am pleased that you have now resolved the issue but I cannot find reference here to any solution that works permanently for me. Are there any other suggestions?

Background/symptoms

- spoolsv.exe is being replaced by a much smaller file (43Kb) signed Phoenix Technologies after each reboot causing the 1053 error when you try to start the spooler.

- following a procedure to either swap the file back or undertake a repair replaces the file and works (but only until the next reboot.) Then I'm back to square one.

- I have tried booting with a selective startup but to no avail. (all startups stopped and all non essential software)

- all printers are removed. I've edited the registries to remove reference to old installs. I even deleted one of the folders in the folder ..\spool\drivers\x64\3 as one contributor suggested.

- My machine is a studio 1555 as are several of the people  see with the same problem.

- I wonder if this is to do with Dell related software such as BIOS since there is common hardware involved and Phoenix technologies are in this business.

What is clear is I have seen no definitive claim as to the software causing the file to be replaced/corrupted.

Without doing this I can't hand over a working (printing) machine to my mother-in-law) and as we all know they are important people to keep happy!