I don’t know about you, but hung print jobs are the bane of my Windows existence. Have you ever had the “canceling . . .” message that just won’t go away? If you have, there is a simple way to purge your Windows print jobs, using a batch file.
To create the batch file, open a text editor, and copy and paste this text into it:
net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.shd
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.spl
net start spooler
Save the file with a name of your choosing, and ending with a .cmd suffix, such as killprintjobs.cmd. Just make sure that it ends with the .cmd suffix.
Now, whenever you have a stuck print job that just won’t go away, double click that file to clear the print job. I keep that file on my desktop for such pesky moments. Do you have any tricks that you use when stuck in printer hell?
Maria Pavel says:
I must say wonderful, and thank you very much for sharing. Hung printer jobs are really a pain in the neck, and irritate too much by causing system instability which results in reboots many a time.
August 10, 2011 — 10:43 am
Josh says:
I agree with Maria. Hung printer jobs are really annoying, and many a time we are left with no option but to reboot. This file, on the other hand, works pretty amazing, I have tried it. Thanks for sharing.
August 11, 2011 — 4:37 am
Melissa says:
Genius! Thank you a million times over! You are my hero today and every day I use that fix from now on!
July 10, 2012 — 1:13 pm
Evan Kline says:
Glad it worked for you Melissa. I haven’t had to use this one in a while, so I hope it continues to work.
July 14, 2012 — 10:31 am
iPos says:
Great batch file, which we will definate use for our customers
August 17, 2012 — 10:01 am
kevin says:
what about a batch to analysis if the printer have a offline status with tons of jobs in the queue? If = true then run the command you given above, else do nothing.
January 7, 2013 — 10:11 am