Purging Print Jobs
June 18 2007
If you are having problems printing in Windows 2000 or XP, it may be because a previous print job is stuck in the print queue (the print queue is what holds the print jobs until the printer is ready to receive them.). To clear the print queue, follow these steps (this assumes that you have sufficient rights to the printer/queue):
In the lower right hand of your task bar, there should be a printer icon after you send the job. If the task bar does not show the printer icon, then click on Start -> Settings -> Printers. This will bring up the printer dialog box. Find the printer you sent the print job to and double click it. You should see a dialog box with the print job(s) currently in queue.
Under the status tab, the status of the print job will be displayed. Notice that the status of this job is paused. Find the jjob(s) that are in the queue that are not responding and right click on the job. A dialog box will appear with the options to pause, resume, cancel or purge.
You can either select purge print jobs, or cancel. After a short wait, the job should disappear from the print queue. If you are unable to follow the above steps, it may be because you do not have sufficient rights to the printer to clear the print jobs -- you will need to find someone who does. Assuming everything went well, your print queue should now be clear (try resending the print job). If it isn't then it's time to try resetting the spooler.
Reset the Spooler
The spooler is a service that queues a print job to disk before sending it to the printer. This trick assumes that the printer is directly controlled by the machine you are on. If not, you will need to log onto the machine that the printer is connected to or the machine that is handling the printer share on the network. Note that this will delete any and all print jobs waiting to be printed!
Open a command window (go to Start -> Run and type CMD