Oh, no, your print job is hung

So your print job is hung, and you can't delete it from the print queue.

To kill the print, job you would normally

1. Select the printer from "Printers and Faxes" ("Printers" in Vista)
2. Click on Documents
3. Click on Cancel

However, sometimes the print queue is out to lunch. You tell it to cancel and it just stares at you, saying "Deleting." After a few minutes of this standoff, you reboot the computer that has the hung Print Spooler.

You don't have to reboot

When using XP
At the computer in question

• Open a command prompt
  1. click  Start 
  2. click Run
  3. In the box that opens, type cmd
  4. click  OK 
• In the window that opens, type the following:
  1. net stop spooler  ENTER 
  2. del c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\*.shd  ENTER 
  3. del c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\*.spl  ENTER 
  4. net start spooler  ENTER 
  5. exit ENTER 

When using Vista
At the computer in question

• Open an "elevated command prompt" by right-clicking on cmd.exe
• select Run as Administrator
• In the window that opens, type the following:
  1. net stop spooler  ENTER 
  2. del c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\*.shd  ENTER 
  3. del c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\*.spl  ENTER 
  4. net start spooler  ENTER 
  5. exit ENTER 

If you know batch files, you could create a batch file to do this. If you don't know batch files, just follow the steps above.