TIP: Can't Delete Print Jobs Printer queue

TIP: Can't Delete Print Jobs

My daughter's in residence at university, a half-hour drive away. So it's not practical to zip over to fix her computer problems. Fortunately, she knows how to do a lot of computer maintenance herself. But yesterday's problem puzzled both her and me.

She wanted to print a document on her brand-new HP printer, but nothing came out. She called, and I told her to delete all pending print jobs. One print job, however, would not delete. I looked on the Internet, and found this is a problem common to Windows XP: the spooler chokes. (The spooler is software that allows printing in the background.)

This solution worked for her:

0. Go to the computer that hosts the printer server, right click on the printer name > cancel all printing

1. On the taskbar, click Start, and then click Run.

2. Enter the following:

net stop spooler (and hit enter)

3. Delete all files in the following folder:

C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers

4. Once the spool files are deleted, start the spooler again:

net start spooler