Here’s how to clean up the print spooler stuff if cleanspl.exe is not available or you prefer to do things manually.
Warning! be very careful using regedit – if you delete the wrong things, you may render your computer inoperative!
1. open regedit (e.g. click Start, key regedit and press Enter)
2. navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPrintEnvironmentsWindows NT 25x86Drivers
under this key, there will be the keys Version-2 and Version-3 (one or the other of these may be absent – not a problem)
the sub-keys under these contain the printer driver configuration information
delete all the sub-keys inside Version-2 and Version-3, but not these keys themselves
The Microsoft Knowledgebase article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;312052 lists some other registry entries to delete, but this is not usually necessary.
3. open a Command Prompt window
4. key the commands
net stop spooler
net start spooler
5. open Windows Explorer
6. navigate to %systemroot%system32spoolprinters and delete any files there. By default, this is where the print spooler stores print files.
7. navigate to %systemroot%system32spooldriversw32x86 (%systemroot% is usually Windows, but it might be winnt or something else; this is set when the OS is installed).
8. inside w32x86, there will be folders with the names 2 and 3 (one or more of these may be absent – not a problem)
delete all of the files and sub-folders in each of the 2 and 3 folders, but not the folders themselves
inside w32x86, there may be other folders with names starting with “hewlett_packard”, “hphp” or something else; delete these folders also
9. restart the print spooler (see steps 8 and 9 above)
