Would you like to learn how to disable the print spooler service? In this tutorial, we will show you how to disable the print spooler service using a GPO.

• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016
• Windows 2019
• Windows 10
• Windows 7

Equipment list

The following section presents the list of equipment used to create this tutorial.

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Tutorial GPO – Disable the print spooler service

On the domain controller, open the group policy management tool.

Windows 2012 - Group Policy Management

Create a new group policy.

Windows 2012 - Group Policy Objects

Enter a name for the new group policy.

Windows - Add GPO

In our example, the new GPO was named: MY-GPO.

On the Group Policy Management screen, expand the folder named Group Policy Objects.

Right-click your new Group Policy Object and select the Edit option.

Windows - Edit GPO

On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.

Copy to Clipboard

Access the folder named System services.

GPO Configure Service Windows

Disable the print spooler service.

On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.

Copy to Clipboard

Access the folder named Printers.

GPO - Printers

Disable the option named Allow print spooler to accept client connections.

GPO - Disable Print Spooler client connections

To save the group policy configuration, you need to close the Group Policy editor.

Congratulations! You have finished the GPO creation.

Tutorial – Disabling the print spooler service

On the Group policy management screen, you need to right-click the Organizational Unit desired and select the option to link an existent GPO.

Windows-2012-Applocker application

In our example, we are going to link the group policy named MY-GPO to the root of the domain.

GPO- tutorial linking

After applying the GPO you need to wait for 10 or 20 minutes.

During this time the GPO will be replicated to other domain controllers.

On a remote computer, verify the print spooler service configuration.

Windows - Print spooler disabled

In our example, we disabled the print spooler service using a GPO.