Empty Windows 11 Print Spooler
What's in the box?
Whether on a workstation under Windows 11 or Windows 10, or a print server under Windows Server, the operating system relies on a service called " Print spooler "which is in charge of print management.
This service is visible in the Services "but also from the Task manager "from the " Services "This is because it displays the same information. The technical name of this service is simply " Spooler" . For empty the Print SpoolerWhen the GUI method doesn't work (and the situation is admittedly a bit critical!), you need to act directly on this native Windows service.
1. Windows "C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS" directory
When a user initiates a print job on one of the printers on your Windows machine, or through a print server, the machine managing the print job will create a temporary file in the " C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS "time to print.
When printing is complete, this randomly-named file is simply deleted. History repeats itself with every printout.
If I present you with this repertoire, it's not just to enrich your personal culture. When you want to empty the Windows Print Spooler, you need to go to this directory. In fact, it sometimes happens thata document is blocking a printer and cannot be removed using the Windows Print Queue Manager. When faced with this situation, the most effective solution is to empty the Print Spooler.
In practice, this is quite simple: you need to purge the " PRINTERS "To start again from scratch. Although radical, this procedure is guaranteed to work: all pending documents are removed from the spooler. Let's take a step-by-step look at how to clear the Print Spooler.
2. Purge print queue
First, we have to stop the " Print spooler "if not the content of the file" PRINTERS "is locked by this process. From the " Services To stop this service, right-click on "Stop" in the Task Manager. Print spooler "then " Stop" .
As soon as the service is stopped, we have complete control over the "PRINTERS" folder, provided we are administrators, as we need high-level rights to touch the contents of this folder.
Go to the folder "C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS" with Windows 11 File Explorer and delete all the files contained in this folder. Each file corresponds to a file waiting to be printed, but as the names are random, it's not possible to make the link.
In the end, you should obtain the following result:
Finally, restart the Print spooler "by right-clicking and then " Start "Then you can print again on your local machine.
Note If the "Print Spooler" service is down, you won't be able to print! This is all the more important if you're running a print server used by a large number of users.
On a workstation, we can apply this procedure manually, whereas on a print server, we prefer to use a PowerShell or Batch script to shut down the print service for as little time as possible.
Now you know Empty Windows 11 Print Spooleror another version of the Windows operating system. Personally, I've been using this method for many years, and it works on Windows from generation to generation, so it's worth learning it by heart once.
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