[Tech Tip] Google Chrome Won't Launch

I cannot tell you how I lived without my favorite web browser for past one week. I searched everywhere on the internet (using the crappy old monolithic Internet Explorer) for fixes to why Chrome (or FireFox for that matter) would show up in Task Manager, but won't launch.

Now that I know why, I will share it with you:

If multiple AntiVirus/AntiSpamware scans yield to nothing, and you recently did not allow a Microsoft update, most likely spoolsv.exe service is to blame. In my case, that is what was the issue.

Apparently Chrome (and surprisingly Firefox too) rely on spoolsv.exe service to tell them about the available printers at launch time. Now if the spooler cannot respond in time, it looks like the querying programs hung up indefinitely, even before displaying any GUI.

Try killing spoolsv.exe manually in task manager, and launch Chrome again. If it does, good for you - don't forget to put a thank you note below. If it doesn't, well, you may have found another issue, solve it to your own piece of fame:-)

Good luck!

P.S. It is amazing how annoying such issues can be, with the user left with no objective data as to what is going wrong. Google, and the mighty dumbed down Microsoft, take a note please?

Gmail "Still Working" and Google Chrome

I don't know if you have experienced a recent slowness in Gmail interface when using a Microsoft Internet Explorer, but it has been killing me. I have seen it on XP and on Vista (32 bit).

But here's the surprise: Gmail works great with Google's own Chrome browser.

Care to speculate why?

;-)