Johnny Matthews | Disable print-spooler in W10

The printer-spooler in Windows 10 is all kinds of fucked, and is a common entry-point for attackers into a W10 system. The best protection right now is to just turn it off until you need to print something. This was written on 22nd of July 2021.

By the god’s Windows is a mess:

Turn the print-spooler off

  1. Open a Command Prompt window with admin privilages.

  2. Run the following:

    net stop spooler && sc config spooler start=disabled

  3. You’re now safe from any print-spooler based attacks.

Turn it back on

  1. Open a Command Prompt window with admin privilages.

  2. Run the following:

    sc config spooler start=auto && net start spooler

  3. Print off your stuff, then immedietly run the disable command.

It’s a weird workaround, but it works.