Problem with spoolsv.exe process.

This process is running all the time and every instances in which I try to end it-it says I'm not allowed to. So in the end I went to Services in my control panel and turned it off from there. For a while it worked until I restarted the system and it showed up again but this time the Services directory doesn't even acknowledge that it's running.

I've been looking around the internet to figure out what the deal is with this process. As far as I can tell, it usually show up and hogs the CPU because of some sort of printing buffer. The main problem with this is that I do not and have never had a printer attached to this machine. So I looked around some more and found out that the spoolsv.exe process sometimes ends up being a trojan. So I took the issue to the Malware forum:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=168513

But my logs turned up clean. So they sent me here.

What do I do here?

 

spool has to do with your printer. Do not turn it off unless you are having a major printer problem.

 

But I don't have a printer! I've never used a printer with this machine.

According to the machine, I've already turned it off in Services but the process just won't end. Doesn't that mean there's something wrong with it?

 

I'm sorry... you said you never had a printer. Next time I promise to read with both eyes open.

Turning it off, might just be for that session. On a reboot, it might be on again.
Is there a choice to disable rather than turn it off?

Go to the run box and type in msconfig. Then click on the services tab and uncheck it from there. (Print Spooler)

If it isn't checked there and you already have it disabled through the Admin Tools/Services then I don't know what else to tell you.

 

msconfig doesn't work for me. I think it's because I'm running 2k.

Is there an alternative route?

 

Not sure but here's a good guess.

Go to Start/Run/services.msc

Then sort by name, scroll down to print spooler and double click.

On the pop-up menu, stop the service, and change starup type to disabled.

Give that a shot and lemme know.

 

I run windows 2000 and have installed msconfig on my computers.
If you want it and do not have access to a computer running XP, you can go here http://merijn.org/winfiles.php#msconfig.exe
download the XP version. Unzip it then copy the exe file to
C:\WINNT \System32
or
C:\Windows \System32
on your Windows 2000 computer.