Need to kill and delete a spooled printer file.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian Smither
  • Start date Start date
B

Brian Smither

On occasion, a spooled file being fed to the printer just stops. No other
jobs can print untiol the stalled spool file is deleted. So far, the only
way I can get rid of the file is to reboot the Win2K Adv Server machine
that serves as a printer server.

Is there any software add-on that can disengage the file from W2KAdvServer
("Access denied. File is in use.") and delete it?

This might be a problem across all levels of W2K (server currently at SP2)
but this problem, which really doesn't happen all that often - twice in the
past six months, requires taking the server down which we really don't want
to do.
 
Have you tried canceling the job? Sometimes that will actually work (no
sarcasm intended). If that doesn't work, try stopping and starting the Print
Spooler Service. Note that I don't suggest "Restarting" the service. I've
found that about 10% of the time the service fails to start. I'm 100%
successful if I stop the service, wait 5 seconds and then start the service.

I usually check all the printers defined on the server first to be sure that
there are no pending print jobs other than on the hung printer. You may get
a call from a user who tries to print while the spooler service is stopped,
but it usually only takes a few seconds. The symptom will be "I have no
printers". Tell them to close the app and reload it.
 
Thank you the excellent suggestion. Still maybe too complex to explain to
the non-server-savvy users I work with in the office (in case I'm not
there), but at least I can run a VNC connection from my other offices and
Stop/Start the service.

Respectfully...
 
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