Is spoolsv.exe a Virus? - Comments Page 1

Certain printer drivers want to phone home, and when they do, they try to do it through spooler. Epson is one such phone home driver app.

Also, Quite a few USB Printer cause this to happen, and as far as I know, all combo printer do (IE: Fax, Copier, Scanner, Printers). It is just windows print spooler. In all cases I have seen it's not trying to access the internet it's trying to access your local computer resources

Try telling ZA to deny without letting it remember the choice. If you have no printing problems over the course of several sessions, make it permanent. If it hoses your printing, change to allow and make that permanent.

I realise I'm seriously late on this topic, but I just found your website (and I love it!) advertised with Randy's This is True. Anyway, my question about this topic is this: I don't have a printer on my home computer but spoolsv.exe still tries to access the internet for some unknown reason. I have McAfee Virus Scan/Adaware Free/and Spybot S/D (amoung others). None of these have found viruses or other malicious files. Have you ever heard of spoolsv.exe requesting outbound access w/o a printer installed?
Thanks so much and THANK you again for your great website.

EDOTOR'S NOTE: My understanding is that SPOOLSV occasionally polls to check for networked printers. If you're worried about this, you can safely block it with a software-based firewall. But I don't think that's necessary.

Just type `net stop spooler` on command line. When you need to print any thing, type `net start spooler` and after finishing, type `net stop spooler` again.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Okay... but why? Seems like a hassle, and there's nothing to indicate that leaving spooling ON is a problem.

I have had similar experiences and allowing the firewall to block access does not stop my Canon printer operating. However I have found a duplicate spoolsv.exe file in Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 but it is a different version - 2180 as opposed to 2696. Could this be a Trojan? None of my virus control or add-aware programs spot it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If your A/V scan didn't flag it, I wouldn't be concerned.

I was able to fix this error on Win XP SP2 by uninstalling McAfee Privacy Service.

Hi, spoolsv.exe was given permission to access the internet via Zonealarm earlier today. Since then I have been unable to access the internet, although my email still works. When I went into the control panel to access the Printer and Fax info, my computer hung. A search for spoolsv.exe (including hidden and system folders) did not come up with anything unusual. Spyware software picked up nothing, but ant virus software picked up a Trojan. Deleting this trojan has not restored my internet access, hence I am using my laptop. This is a work in progress.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I would get rid of ZoneAlarm... it's completely unnecessary and often causes problems like this one. See http://askbobrankin.com/do_i_need_a_firewall.html

Hi, Cool site. I have this same problem, BUT I DO NOT have a printer hooked up to this computer. Why should spoolsv.exe try to access the internet on a computer without a printer and the printing port is disabled. Thanks for in advance.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I think spoolsv is occasionally polling on the network to see if there are any (new) network-attached printers.

i do not have printer attached to my pc.however, i have deleted the printer file in the spool file which located at system 32...the file keep appearing again and again...even i have deleted the file..the wording appear like this SPOOLSV.EXE -- pls insert disk to drive A as the drive is empty.help me....

EDITOR'S NOTE: Did you delete the SPOOLSV.EXE file? That's not advised...