Cancel a Print Job Without Waiting Forever for It to End
Surely this has happened to you: You cancel a print job, and then you have to wait what seems like forever for the task to really end. It's annoying, and a serious time waster.
It's one of those things that has bugged me since Windows 95, and it's still a problem today.
Making the print job go away on command means "stopping" the Windows print spooler, deleting temporary files related to the print job, and restarting the print spooler. Obviously, that's not something you or I am willing to do. But Lifehacker explains how to eliminate this problem quickly and efficiently.
Here's all you need to do. Copy this text into a Notepad document and save it as clearprintspool.bat:
@echo off
echo Stopping print spooler.
echo.
net stop spooler
echo deleting stuff... where? I'm not sure. Just deleting stuff.
echo.
del %systemroot%system32spoolprinters*.shd
del %systemroot%system32spoolprinters*.spl
echo Starting print spooler.
echo.
net start spooler
Leave the file somewhere handy, like on your desktop. When you run into a print problem, double-click the file, and you'll get control of your printer back in a few moments, not many, many minutes.
