Question : Windows cannot connect to the printer.  The local print spooler service is not running. Please restart the spooler or restart the machine.

I have an old Windows XP machine that's sharing an HP LaserJet 1012.  The share has worked fine for several years.  It went bad a few days ago.  The details:

- I've rebuilt the share several times.  I can print fine from the XP workstation that provides the share.
- I have no problem mapping the share with other machines running Windows XP.
- I'm unable to map the share, however, on machines running Windows 7.  I receive the following error when trying to map the share on a Windows 7 machine: "Windows cannot connect to the printer.  The local print spooler service is not running. Please restart the spooler or restart the machine."
- Each time I reboot or manually restart the spooler service and then try the mapping again, the message appears again and the spooler service stops.

Answer : Windows cannot connect to the printer.  The local print spooler service is not running. Please restart the spooler or restart the machine.

Are you running 32bit or 64 bit windows 7. You may need to download drivers. If the shared printer is on a 32 bit machine you will have to install the drivers for a x64 machine on that machine