The printer spooler service, SPOOLSS.EXE (SPOOLSV in Windows 2000), manages jobs sent to printers connected to Windows NT and Windows 2000 machines. (If you're printing to a remote or networked printer, the Spooler service on the machine the remote printer is attached to will handle the job.)

On occasion, a print job may refuse to work correctly and may jam up the whole print queue. Worse, it may become impossible to delete conventionally -- i.e., by right-clicking on the job and selecting Cancel, or by selecting Cancel All Documents from the Printer menu. When this happens, it usually means the job itself is corrupt and must be deleted manually.

1. If you're trying to delete a specific stuck print job, take note of the job's approximate time and date.
2. Close all open Printers folders.
3. Stop the Spooler service. In Windows 2000, this is done through the Services icon in Administrative Tools (found in the Control Panel); in Windows NT 4.0, this is done through the Services icon in the Control Panel. You can also stop the Spooler by typing NET STOP SPOOLER at a command prompt. If you are using TCP/IP Printing Services, you will need to stop that service as well.
4. Open the %Winroot%System32SpoolPrinters directory (same in both operating systems). Make sure Explorer is set to view hidden and system files.
5. Delete all *.SPL and *.SHD files in that directory that match the time/date stamp of the job you're trying to kill. If you are simply trying to purge everything, delete all files with those extensions.
6. Close the Printers folder and restart the stopped services. You can restart the Spooler from the command line by typing NET START SPOOLER.

If you have too many "dead" spool files in the directory, you may also get this error whenever you try to print:

An application error has occurred and an application error log is being generated.
SPOOLSS.EXE (SPOOLSV.EXE in Win2K)
Exception: access violation (0xc0000005), Address: <Hex address>

This indicates that the directory may be overloaded with printer spooler files and needs to be cleaned. Also check into the system's TEMP directories and remove any *.TMP files, as these can also be an obstacle; some printer drivers use the TEMP directory for rasterization of print jobs.

Serdar Yegulalp is the editor of the Windows 2000 Power Users Newsletter.