windows & printers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Øyvind Granberg
  • Start date Start date
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Øyvind Granberg

hi...
I have been a Windows user since the first version came out in the late
eighties.
But the astonishing thing about Windows is the incredible useless printer
interaction this OS has shown even from day one!
Please, you MVP and whom else it may concern, bring this to the developers
and get the problem fixed.

If you in Word send a document to the printer, and you shortly thereafter
regret this, you're in for a long time consuming wait.
First you open up the printer queue.
Then you mark your document, right click it and in the pop up menu choose
Cancel. In the status column it says Deleting - document. You
wait...........wait........ and....
NOTHING HAPPENS!
You repeat this cancel command a dozen times or so, but still
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Then you from the printer menu choose Cancel all documents, but..
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Then after a while, after a futile wait, and the column named Size doesn't
show progress in transferring the document to the printer, you turn to the
printer and turn it off, sit down and wait for the error message to pop up.
It won't.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Then, in shear despair you pull the plug on the computer.
Reboot.
Turn on the printer.
Open the document.
Send it to the printer.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Open up the printer queue again.
There it is, the first document still residing at the top of the list and
acting like a plug in a hose.
You choose to delete the latter document from the queue and sit down with a
card game in waiting for the document to disappear from the printer queue.
Wow... three minutes later it does. It really is gone.
But the plug document remains!
Again you cancel all print jobs.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
The plug won't go away!
Two decades has passed and I'm still waiting for that document to be removed
from the printer queue.
Is this a virus?
It stopped your printing, and you can't get rid of it.
It is stuck.
Frustrating!

What can I do to delete this printing job?



--

Kind regards
Øyvind Granberg

(e-mail address removed)
www.tresfjording.com
 
First of all you must realize that according to Microsoft this is a problem
due to the way the printer manufacturer wrote the driver for their device.
The fact that all printers and printer drivers, regardless of manufacturer,
exhibit similar traits could have nothing to do with the operating system
itself according to Microsoft.
My personal favorite is the difference between the XP and Vista driver for
my HP laser printer: in the Vista version it is impossible to que printing
jobs without getting anything other than printed hash after the first print
job yet the XP driver will que up any number of print jobs and print
flawlessly.
 
Øyvind Granberg said:
hi...
I have been a Windows user since the first version came out in the late
eighties.
But the astonishing thing about Windows is the incredible useless
printer interaction this OS has shown even from day one!
Please, you MVP and whom else it may concern, bring this to the
developers and get the problem fixed.

If you in Word send a document to the printer, and you shortly
thereafter regret this, you're in for a long time consuming wait.
First you open up the printer queue.
Then you mark your document, right click it and in the pop up menu
choose Cancel. In the status column it says Deleting - document. You
wait...........wait........ and....
NOTHING HAPPENS!
You repeat this cancel command a dozen times or so, but still
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Then you from the printer menu choose Cancel all documents, but..
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Then after a while, after a futile wait, and the column named Size
doesn't show progress in transferring the document to the printer, you
turn to the printer and turn it off, sit down and wait for the error
message to pop up. It won't.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Then, in shear despair you pull the plug on the computer.
Reboot.
Turn on the printer.
Open the document.
Send it to the printer.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
Open up the printer queue again.
There it is, the first document still residing at the top of the list
and acting like a plug in a hose.
You choose to delete the latter document from the queue and sit down
with a card game in waiting for the document to disappear from the
printer queue. Wow... three minutes later it does. It really is gone.
But the plug document remains!
Again you cancel all print jobs.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
The plug won't go away!
Two decades has passed and I'm still waiting for that document to be
removed from the printer queue.
Is this a virus?
It stopped your printing, and you can't get rid of it.
It is stuck.
Frustrating!

What can I do to delete this printing job?
Click to expand...
Run the following batch file at a command prompt:
@echo off
echo.
echo Purging the print queue . . .
net stop Spooler
echo Deleting all print jobs . . .
ping localhost -n 4 > nul
del /q %SystemRoot%\system32\spool\printers\*.*
net start Spooler
echo Done!
ping localhost -n 4 > nul

You may want to create a desktop shortcut to this file.

I've used it in Windows XP. Not sure if the path is the same in Vista.
My Vista machine is a laptop and generally doesn't have a printer connected.


Bill
 
I guess since so many different printer manufacturers having the same
trouble, it must be the environment the drivers function in that is flawed,
no matter what Capt. Gates and his crew is claiming.

Thank you a lot Bill S.!
The batch file worked just fine, even on my Vista computer. The queue was
cleared instantly.
My two decade wait is over! :-)

--

Kind regards
Øyvind Granberg

(e-mail address removed)
www.tresfjording.com
 
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