Windows 2000 Professional Printing Problem

[Guest roback@earthlink.net]

I have a printing problem. I use a simple visual basic program to do

some billing for my office. I went to print a form out of it this

morning and did not put in a specific date range to print. Instead of a

blank form, pages and pages of random printer/printing information

started to pour out of my printer. I tried to print a word doc just to

see if it was a os issue or program specific, and it did the same thing.

I don't understand it. Is there some kind of endless loop spool file

that no matter what I try to print now gets sent to my printer??? What

do I do? I tried unplugging the connections from the printer and

rebooting with no avail. The only thing that rebooting and turning the

compuer off does is stops the paper from pouring out, but when I go to

print something it starts up again. Please help if you can!

[Guest Mark Blain]

Re: Windows 2000 Professional Printing Problem

 

roback@earthlink.net wrote in

news:roback-693D95.13412017012008@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net:

> I have a printing problem. I use a simple visual basic program to do

> some billing for my office. I went to print a form out of it this

> morning and did not put in a specific date range to print. Instead of

> a blank form, pages and pages of random printer/printing information

> started to pour out of my printer. I tried to print a word doc just

> to see if it was a os issue or program specific, and it did the same

> thing. I don't understand it. Is there some kind of endless loop

> spool file that no matter what I try to print now gets sent to my

> printer??? What do I do? I tried unplugging the connections from the

> printer and rebooting with no avail. The only thing that rebooting

> and turning the compuer off does is stops the paper from pouring out,

> but when I go to print something it starts up again. Please help if

> you can!

 

The output sent to your printer is a mixture of text and control codes.

The control codes tell the printer where to position the text, what size,

what font etc. If you turn off the printer in the middle of printing,

the part of the file already sent to the printer's memory is wiped out,

but Windows doesn't know that. When you turn the printer back on,

Windows resumes sending the rest. The leftover control codes and text

get misunderstood by the printer and you get garbage.

 

Here's one explanation of how to clear out the unwanted leftovers:

"Clearing the Print Queue in Windows"

http://www.computer-2tr.com/tips/05/20050815.html

[Guest Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Re: Windows 2000 Professional Printing Problem

 

 

<roback@earthlink.net> wrote in message

news:roback-693D95.13412017012008@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...

>I have a printing problem. I use a simple visual basic program to do

> some billing for my office. I went to print a form out of it this

> morning and did not put in a specific date range to print. Instead of a

> blank form, pages and pages of random printer/printing information

> started to pour out of my printer. I tried to print a word doc just to

> see if it was a os issue or program specific, and it did the same thing.

> I don't understand it. Is there some kind of endless loop spool file

> that no matter what I try to print now gets sent to my printer??? What

> do I do? I tried unplugging the connections from the printer and

> rebooting with no avail. The only thing that rebooting and turning the

> compuer off does is stops the paper from pouring out, but when I go to

> print something it starts up again. Please help if you can!

 

Mark added a link to his excellent explanation. The link explains

that deleting all jobs from the printer queue (via the Control Panel)

will fix most of these problems. Unfortunately the rest of that page

is inaccurate. Stopping/restarting the printer queue will NOT

clear it, nor will rebooting the machine. However, the following

batch file will:

@echo off

echo.

echo Purging the print queue . . .

net stop Spooler

echo Deleting all print jobs . . .

ping localhost -n 4 > nul

del /q %SystemRoot%\system32\spool\printers\*.*

net start Spooler

echo Done!

ping localhost -n 4 > nul

 

Save the above code in c:\WinNT\Purge.bat, then create a shortcut

on your desktop that points to it.

[Guest Mark Blain]

Re: Windows 2000 Professional Printing Problem

 

"Pegasus \(MVP\)" <I.can@fly.com.oz> wrote (in part):

> Mark added a link to his excellent explanation...

 

Actually, I linked to somebody else's explanation.

Thank you for spotting that part of it's incorrect. I'd been looking for

something with screenshots of the process, but that's the best I came up

with. Microsoft offers the following:

 

"How to cancel printing or to delete a print job that is stuck in the print

queue in Windows XP"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946737