How to change the location of the print spool folder

XP uses the spool folder on your hard disk to store queued print jobs. Without it, you’d have to wait until printing was finished to use other programs on your system. The spool folder is located on the partition where your Windows system files are installed, but if this partition gets low on free space, you can move it to a different location. This can also speed up performance. Here’s how:

1. First, be sure you’re logged on with an administrative account.
2. Click Start | My Computer.
3. Select the drive where you want to store the spool folder.
4. Click Make a New Folder under File and Folder Tasks in the left pane.
5. Type a name for the folder.
6. Click Start | Printers and Faxes.
7. Click File | Server Properties, then click the Advanced tab.
8. In the Spool Folder field, enter the path to the new folder you created in step 4.
9. Click Apply.
10. After any documents currently printing have finished, click Yes.
11. Click OK.