Do you know you can connect to a shared printer through the command line in Windows operating system? Yes, the shared printer can be local or on a network. The process is very simple, and you can do this without any tech support.

Let’s take a look at the steps below.

• Step 1: Click the “Start” button in the lower-left corner of the screen and then click on “Run”.
• Step 2: Type “cmd” without quotes, then press “Enter.”
• Step 3: In the command prompt you need to type “net use lpt1: “\\computer\printer“ /persistent:yes” without quotes. You need to replace “computer“ and “printer” with the actual shared network computer and printer name.
• Step 4: Now press “Enter.” You might be prompted for the shared computer’s username and password. Enter it.
• Step 5: Type “exit” without quotes, then press “Enter.”

If you can not perform the task yourself, consult service providers that fix printer problem. There are many service providers that offer help to the experts for troubleshooting printer problems.

You are getting ready to print an important document and as you hit the print button, an error message pops up saying “Operation could not be completed. The print spooler service is not running”. What to do? Before diving into how to resolve printer spooler problem, let’s discuss what printer spooler exactly is.

Print Spooler is the key component for a print job. Whether it is deletion, queuing and restarting of a print job, the print spooler does it all. In fact, once the print message is given to the printer, it is performed by the print spooler.

Spooler problem is a very common printer problem. Let’s have a look how to resolve printer spooler problem.

*    Open the Run dialogue box. Type services.msc in the box and click OK, this will bring the services window up.

*    Scroll down to print spooler and in properties the start up type set to automatic. Then click OK.

*    Update the printer driver software that came with the printer. For this, you can go to the website of the printer manufacturer and download and install the updated version. The problem should get resolved.

*    If the problem persists, completely uninstall printer drivers from your computer and reinstall it. Uninstallation could be executed through Control Panel in the dialog box. Click on add remove programs and select the particular software and click on remove.

The above mentioned tips should resolve the common printer spooler problems. If unresolved, talk to a computer help provider for printer support.

Some people do understand what it is like to buy a new printer and go ahead with troubleshooting for long hours with the manufacturer’s technician and getting an indication that even the manufacturer does not have a clue to the problem!! Trust me, a lot of time and patience goes in vain because we fail to understand what exactly could have caused the problem, getting transferred from one department(from desktop to laptop, from printer to camera, from Windows to Macintosh) to the other when the printer-help toll free number is called up. I believe in prevention is better than cure and to avoid such a situation we can follow a few golden rules.

1)If you are installing your printer, then first make sure that your computer is in good shape. A non-responsive and slow computer with virus in it or very little RAM in it will not let you install other software easily and in a proper way. Read the rest of this entry »