Hey everyone! I'm a junior sysadmin and I've run into a problem with a user's spool folder that's taking up an alarming 174GB of space. The folders have random names, and I'm not sure what they signify. I've tried searching online and even asked Claude for help, but I haven't found any specific answers. I'm hoping someone here can offer some advice on what could be causing this and how to resolve it. The folder is located at C:\windows\system32\spool.
4 Answers
It looks like you might have a Xerox printer. There’s a known bug with certain print drivers that can cause the contents of C:windows to get duplicated in the spool folder. It might be worth checking into that!
Don't forget to look for old print jobs, too. Cleaning those out could help. Just be sure to stop the spooler service first, or it might still cause issues while you're working.
First off, definitely stop the spooler service before making any changes. After that, I recommend deleting everything in C:windowssystem32spool and restarting the spooler service. If the user’s printers are defined locally, you might want to update the drivers or recreate the printer definitions. This could help clear up the issue!
You should check the contents of the spool folders. They might be attempting to print to a PDF and failing, which can cause files to pile up. If you see recognizable files, that’ll lead you closer to the problem. Otherwise, you might need to dig deeper to figure out what's generating those random files.
Interesting! Would old print jobs really take up that much space? I thought it wouldn’t be that heavy.