March 4th, 2006 
admin 
I bet you feel like that picture – don’t you? If you are encountering this error, you will be tempted to just reformat your computer. It will drive you insane. Let me try to steer you in the right direction. You may not have heard about the .shd or .spl file extensions and you may not care. First things first. Try to start/restart the spooler service. Sometimes this helps. In Xp, go to the control panel, administrative tools, services. Go down to print spooler and start or restart if it’s on already. Then try to print again. No luck? Then it’s time to get our hands dirty and learn a little. Don’t worry this isn’t too painful…
You can go to Undocumented Printing to learn about the file formats .shd and .spl. They basically hold the print job and drawing instructions. What happens is that, for numerous possible reasons, that job is corrupted and locks up the print que. This crashes the spooler subsystem. So, no adding, deleting printers or printing can be done.
First, shut down the print spooler service (see above). Next, delete any orphaned/corrupt .shd and/or .spl files in the c:windows/system32/spooler/printers directory. Or, you can go to this HP site and have this batch file do it for you. This may be particularly helpful if you are having the issue with a Brother printer. Restart the print spooler service. Now, if you keep getting this issue, you may have a problem with the print driver you are using. Try changing it. If you have a print server, then it may be to blame. I hope that helps!
Tip: If you are having other problems with your computer, like slowness or errors, you should check out Registry Fix.
(Picture Source: MIT)
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thanks!!! worked like a charm!
thank you very much….tanks a lot…..
We’ve had this problem on and off for weeks. Sometimes it seemed to be resolved by changing the toner cartridge; sometimes it turned out to be a trojan. Today, your advice about deleting orphan files solved the problem simply and easily. thank you so much.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
You a really a life saver! I was going crazy with this problem, I tried microsoft help, I called computer specialists and still no success.
Keep up the great work!!!
I just googled your page. I worked like a charm! Tnx!
I just love to-the-point advice instead of the technical jargon the net is full of! Big thanks, mate!
Excellent – thank you!
Words fail me!!! I’ve been messing about for nearly 3 hours trying to fix this problem and then I found your site – you are a life saver. Fan bloody tastic!
I spent 3 hours getting nowhere…thought I was going to have to turn it in to our support guys. When I saw the printers listed again, I almost cried.. Thank you.
Thanks one more time.
Still saving time and money and stress after all this time. What a valuable bit of advice. This worked on XP Pro in 2008!
Nice work. I could see the *.shd files, but the other files in the folder didn’t have an extension. Deleted them anyway and it all seems to work fine now!
Thanks!
i’ve been struggling with this problem for almost a day, i have found a lot of suggetions like yours but, unfortunately that doesn’t solve my problem. i still receive this ****** error “spooler subsystem…” i have done everyting like DELETING that .shd file, used cleanspl.exe and i’ve even reformatted my PC…BUT STILL i have this HEADACHE. pls help me. i really need to print some importatnt documents ASAP,or i w’ll be dead!
BTW, my printer is HP and i can print text documents w/o problems, but when i tried printing SOME graphics and SOME pictures i encounterd that problem. I was able to print SOME pictures too, so defnitely, i have no idea what to do and what is goin on????
You are a star! It worked like magic after hours of fluffing about
Thanks a million!
It’s people like you that make people like me look like we know what we’re doing. Thanks.
Works!!! Many thanks!
Thanks so much. When it happened before, had everything reinstalled. Worked for awhile until yesterday after trying to print a pdf file, it hung up. Then searching the web found your solution. It made sense about the corrupted print job locking up the que. So deleted the .spl and .shd file and lo and behold…a miracle! Thanks again.
Thanks. It resolved my issue.
U r the one MAN !!!
My problem already solevd
Thank you very much….muack!!!! lol
This worked and was so simple. Thank you SO much!!!!
you are great!! my problem has been solved via your website. keep up with the good work thanks
thankz a ton ur a genius
Thanks for this post. very helpful
Again!! Had this problem a couple of months ago, and after a few days of run arounds, I found this site. A very simple fix, go figure.
Well it happened again, and I was frantic to find you site again, (I forgot to bookmark it). Thanks goodness I found it. At least I only lost 10 minutes this time. Not days. Thanks again!!!
Awesome. Thanks for saving me a whole bunch of time!
It worked, thaks a lot
Thanks a Lot dude…….
Tanks,
could have safed me one hour if i found you’re posting immediately
still helpfull in decemeber 2008..
Thank you ,thank you thank you.
I solve my problem and I am very grateful to you. God blase you.
Thank you very much, This worked, its been driving me crazy working this out! Good Post!!!
Brilliant!! Thank you very much… You saved me hours of headaches…. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
WoW, three years later and that fix is still saving peoples a$$es
Seems to have worked great on a MS 2003 print server, thanks!!
Baller!!!!! Thanks for the info!
After hours of searching your simple and easy directions cleared up a repeated problem that I have been dealing with for years!
You are a gentleman and a scholar.
Thank you very much,
Bill
you’re the best man…
you solve my problem on my Brother DCP150C printer..
Thank you so much…
You’re the best!!!
Thank you very very much.
I just used this article to work on a Dell Inspiron 710m and it worked like a charm! I opend Task Manager and found that the spool.svc was taking up a high percentage of CPU time, (91 to 98 %) I did exactly as the article stated to do, rebooted the system, logged in, opened Task Manager again and the spool.svc has stayed at 0.0%, thanks for the help.
You’re awesome! Thanks!!
Thank you very very much, it is a great help. Almost need to install xp again, luckyly found your tips.
need this solved with a vista machine tried mircosofts fix it program but its still not working
Thanks, that fixed the problem immediately!!
Thank you so much! I was about to give up when I found your page – you saved me (and my printer)!
THANKS So much…May the almighty bless u with more ideas..
You are a genius. What a relief!
Thank you! Printer works fantastic. You rock!
Poxa cara!… valeus… resolveu meu problema… um abraço do Brasil!!…