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Purge Printer Job's

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by teaton

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I work for a library where we provide public access terminals running NT 4.0 Workstation as standalone PC's. We use Poledit to create policies that restrict the patrons access to the workstation and start a shell program that is baisically a form ofsecurity software. Our staff have a very limited knowledge of the technical aspects of the PC's so we would prefer to not let them have any more access than is absolutely necessary. Sometimes our patrons will get impatient and try to print several copies of the same page. This ties up the printer and wastes paper. I am trying to write a script that will purge all jobs that are waiting in the queue on the workstation. I have tried to use the delete command to clean out c:\winnt\system32\spool and ....spool\printers folders but that did not work. Does anyone know if there is a command lind command that will purge the print queue? Or if there is annother folder that these jobs are stored in?

9 replies

by ntoz

Technicaly you can do what your trying, but you would first have to issue a net stop command for the spooler service. A command like:

Net Stop "Print Spooler"
then your clean up routeen
Then
Net Start "Print Spooler"

By stopping the print spooler, you allow the deletion of the files in the directory your speeking of. Your scrpit would have to also be running under administrative contect in order to start and stop the service, or an account with proper credientials as the least. I hope this helped, email me if you need some more help.

Pete

Pete

by teaton

I can delete any files that apear in the two folders that I referred to but that does not stop the jobs from printing.

by ntoz

You do say in your question though, "have tried to use the delete command to clean out c:\winnt\system32\spool and ....spool\printers folders but that did not work" Another thing you have to keep in mind is the data that has already been sent from the print spooler and saved in RAM on the printer is going to keep printing until the RAM buffer is exausted. There are no NT commands to clear that out. In other words, if I have a 2 megabyte print job and a 10 megabyte buffer on the printer, no matter how you try to clear out the 2 megabyte print job, once its been transmited or partial transmittal, the printer is going to print what ever it has in its buffer. The suggestion I gave previously is about the limit you can do from an NT perspective. If you happen to have an HP or DeskJet type print card, it can be managed from HP Jetdirect software and perhaps that might give you some leverage from its standpoint. But the answer as far as NT is concerned, if the jobs been partialy sent or in total, its going to keep printing even if the spooler says the job is deleted or deleting. I understand you dont want to give them too much access but by default the print owner only has control over his/her jobs, they can stop thier own jobs and control them but cannot change printer function or others jobs.

Why not charge for documents printed over a certain amount, or at least threaten them with it. Also Win

by teaton

I can delete the files from the referenced folders, turn the printer off and shut down and restart the computer and the job will still print when I am back on line. We are using Jetadmin, unfortunately not all of our printers are networked HP's.We have been working on a contract to provide pay printing. Because we are a government entity there are a number of chanels that a contract like this has to go through which take a conciderable amount of time. In the meantime our patrons and staff are extreamly frustrated and sunce I don't setr the policy for this sot of thing there is little I can do to help them. While it does not solve my problem your information has at least helped to enlighten me and for that I thank you. I will review your recomendations to see if there is something I have overlooked. If I find anything I'll let you know. I'd like to leave this question open for a while in case someone else might have some information I can use. Please don't think that I don't appreciate your input.

by ntoz

Thank you tom for your note via TechRepublic peer directory. If I can do anything to help you out in the future, let me know! This should allow you to rate this follow up and then close the question. Thanks again!

Pete

by teaton

I was amazed at how quickly I got an answer to my first attempt at asking a question through this technical Q&A. At first the response I got confused me a little but that was not Pete's fault in any way. He did an excellent job of answering my question. Sometimes I am a little slow on the uptake, especialy at the end of the day when I am tired. Once I got some rest I was able to write and implement a script file that worked just the way I wanted it to. Pete deserves full credit for this one. Thanks. Tom.

by teaton

I was amazed at how quickly I got an answer to my first attempt at asking a question through this technical Q&A. At first the response I got confused me a little but that was not Pete's fault in any way. He did an excellent job of answering my question. Sometimes I am a little slow on the uptake, especialy at the end of the day when I am tired. Once I got some rest I was able to write and implement a script file that worked just the way I wanted it to. Pete deserves full credit for this one. Thanks. Tom.

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