How to clear items from the printer spooler

If you have ever attempted to remove a printer or print a page, only to find documents were stuck in printer spooler preventing you from performing the operation, this small tutorial will show you how to clear the spooler/queue, allowing you to print again or remove the printer entirely.

This guide currently is for Windows XP only.

1. First, open an MS-DOS prompt Window (Start / Run / cmd.exe)
2. Type without quotes, "net stop spooler".
3. Double-click "My Computer", and navigate to C:\Windows\system32\spool\
4. Double-click on "printers", and delete any files within that folder
5. Restart the spooler service in the MS-DOS window with "net start spooler".

You should now be able to remove the printer and/or print documents again.