Need to kill and delete a spooled printer file.

[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.

 

[Hank Arnold]

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.

 

[Brian Smither]

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...