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Winflushprintjobs, Restart Jammed Print Jobs

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:04:55 +0000

In How To Deal With Stuck Print Jobs I explained how Windows users can recover from jammed print jobs manually either from the command line, by batch script or by restarting the Print Spooler service. Sometimes print jobs get jammed and cannot be removed from the print queue anymore. Even worse, they block all other print jobs that are send to the printer.

The free Open Source software Winflushprintjobs is basically an advanced version of the batch file that I posted in the stuck print jobs guide. The program is offered as an installer, portable version and source code. It ships with three different applications, a batch file called flush.bat a C program that has been specifically designed for Windows 95, 98 and ME, and a C program that deletes all print jobs on all local printers.

Most users will make use of the batch file to resolve the jammed printer issue. The batch script basically restarts the print spooler to resolve the issue. Restarting removes all print jobs from the queue including the stuck print job that cannot be deleted.

The C program on the other hand tries a different approach. Instead of resetting the print spooler, it tries to delete all print jobs on all local printers individually instead.

Both programs should be run from the command line if output is needed for verification, as no output is displayed if the programs are started with a double-click on the program icon.

Winflushprintjobs is a versatile program that’s best suited for situations where multiple printers are connected to a single desktop PC. The program does not support network printers.

Windows users can download the portable software from the developer website. The program is offered as a 32-bit and 64-bit edition for all versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Update: Download do not seem to work right now. You can download both releases from Sourceforge instead.

How To Deal With Stuck Print Jobs

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:50:15 +0000

It happens from time to time that a print job is not processed by Windows and that it cannot be deleted at the same time; A stuck print job so to speak which will block all the other print jobs from being processed. Even a restart of the computer system will not get rid of the stuck print job. There is however a fast and efficient method to remove the stuck print job from the print queue. All that basically needs to be done is to stop the Print Spooler service, delete the stuck print jobs manually and restart the Print Spooler service afterwards.

This can all be done in the Windows command line for maximum effectiveness or in the Windows Explorer interface for users who prefer to click their way through the process. To use the GUI approach you press [Windows R], type [services.msc] and look for the Print Spooler service. Right-click that service and select [Stop] from the context menu. This will stop the Print Spooler which will make it possible to delete the print jobs in the print queue. Keep the window open as we need it again to start the Print Spooler service.

Now use Windows Explorer to open %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\ and delete all files that are found inside. Once that has been done it is time to start the Print Spooler service again. This is done in the same menu where it was stopped. a right-click will not show an option to [Start] the Print Spooler service again. All print jobs should be gone and it should be possible to run new print jobs again.

If you prefer the command line you can run the following four commands for the same effect. It is probably a good idea to add them to a batch script.

net stop spooler del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.shd del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.spl net start spooler

The script does exactly the same as the manual method.