Clearing the Windows printer spool

Sometimes, Windows will have issues deleting documents from your printing queue. If the document won't delete, try these steps.

  1. Open printing queue. File, Pause printing.
  2. WIN-r to bring up the Run dialog. Type services.msc and hit Enter.
  3. Find Printer Spool in the list. Right click it and select Stop.
  4. Open an Explorer window and navigate to C:\Windows\system32\spool\PRINTER. The capitalization of the PRINTER folder may be different, or it may even be a plural PRINTERS. Regardless, delete all the files in the PRINTER folder, but not the folder itself.
  5. Restore services.msc and Start the Printer Spool service.
  6. Restore the printing queue. File, uncheck Pause printing. Close and reopen the queue and the frozen documents should be gone.

Windows


Last modified on 10 Jun 2015 at 01:10:01 AM EDT ET