Clear Print Queue in Windows
In order to get the printing services back up and running, follow these steps:
1. Go to Start, Control Panel and Administrative Tools. Double click on Services icon.
2. Scroll down to the Print Spooler service and right click on it and select Stop. In order to do this, you need to be logged in as Administrator. At this point, no one will be able to print anything on any of the printers that are being hosted on this server.
3. Next you need to go to the following directory: C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\PRINTERS. You can also type %windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS into the address bar in Explorer if the C drive is not the default Windows partition. Delete all the files in this folder.
This will clear all print queues (If you’re doing this on a server, it’s a good idea to first make sure there are no other print jobs being processed for any of the other printers on the server because doing this step will delete those jobs also).
4. Now you can go back to the Services console and right-click and choose Start for the Print Spooler service!
At this point, you should be able to print without a problem. If you prefer to use a script, i.e. for a server, then you can create a batch file with the commands below or just type them into the command prompt:
net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q /F /S
net start spooler
The first and third commands are fairly obvious: they stop and start the print spooler service. The middle command deletes everything in the printers folder and the /Q is for quiet mode, which means you won’t get a prompt asking if you want to delete each file. /F will force delete all read-only files and /S will delete any subdirectories if those exist. Deleting content from this folder can never harm your computer, so don’t worry if you see some files or folders and aren’t sure what they are for.
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