Print Queue History/Log

Restarting the print spooler generally doesn't drop print jobs it just stops accepting new ones. End users will notice but it won't be as bad as silently dropping a print job. In general I would say it is safe to restart the service on the fly.

More importantly I wanted to share this with you:

Occasionaly I've had experience with a corrupt print job in a printer queue. In those cases I've noticed

a. The print spooler won't stay started as long as the corrupt print job is present and the target printer is on
b. the print spooler won't let you delete the corrupt job through the GUI if the spooler is stopped
c. the printer won't print any other job until the corrupt job is completed or deleted.

To fix this you have to

1. Physically turn off the printer
2. start/restart the print spooler
3. delete the corrupted print job
4. turn on the printer

If you don't do 1-4 in exactly that order you get stuck in an endless loop fighting with a-c.

I can't promise you that your situation matches this experience but I think its worth considering the behaviour observed and the implications to how the process of printing/print spooling hands things along.

edit: In the opposite take to Evan's manipulation of the spool files. You can use the print queue on Windows (start - settings - printers or start - printers) and delete the job from the print queue using the Document menu - Cancel option.

The key is in his way of dealing with it the spool service has to be stopped in dealing with it my way the spooler has to be started. If you have physical access to the printer and it is convenient to turn it off you can use my method. If you don't have access to the physical printer you can use his method.

I ended up needing the change some of the group policy settings in relation to the pruning of the printers. Also, there appears to be some weirdness that exists in relation to the SNMP polling/monitoring with Windows 7 and printers.