BKaF – Brad Kovach and Friends

Print Flush

May 14, 2009
by Brad Kovach
Leave a Comment!

…or just Download (version 1.3, zip file, 511 bytes)

If Print Flush solved a problem for you, please consider donating to BKaF! Print Flush is totally free, so please feel no obligation to donate.

NEW! I’m releasing Print Flush under GPLv3. That means that anyone can take, modify, adulterate, and redistribute it under any circumstances. Hopefully, Print Flush can evolve under GPLv3. For the interested, it is its own source code. Edit it with a text editor to make changes.

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Print Flush 1.3

Fix your printer with this small utility!

Has your printer quit working? Did you try to cancel a job and it broke the printer completely? I always do that. And the method to fix it usually involves rebooting, restarting the print spooler, trashing junk print files, and sometimes even more. Not anymore.

“My printer stopped working in January – and anytime I needed to print something I had to drive to the UPS store… but Print Flush worked – this sounds like a cheezy commercial but thanks.” (Tamara, September 2007)

Introducing my lean-and-mean print spooler cleaner! It’s a simple batch file that takes all the steps necessary to unjam a printer queue and puts them at a double-click of the mouse.

Print Flush has a simple function: clean the print spool. If your printer’s driver is incorrectly installed, Print Flush cannot help you. If you have used your printer before and it worked fine then, but it doesn’t now, Print Flush can probably help you.

It also works with Vista.

…or just Download (version 1.3, zip file, 511 bytes)

Directions

Save somewhere where you can find it.
If you downloaded the zipped version… Unzip the file to the desktop or something
Double-click the file
Try printing again!

Version History

Version 1.3 – Update Recommended!
- Fixes directory change bug which was erasing files in the directory in which Print Flush runs.
Version 1.2
- Fixes print spooler dependency problems, such as those caused by Lexmark printers.
Version 1.1
- Works with Windows 98, NT, 2000, and XP for certain, and I imagine many others, too.
Version 1.0
- Initial release

Print Flush 1.3: Download

Print Flush 1.3 zipped: Download

36 Responses to “Print Flush”

Silvio Romero
On December 15th, 2007
6:18 pm

Thanks. It worked

TC
On December 22nd, 2007
9:27 am

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. THis was fabulous.

Sephra
On January 18th, 2008
10:05 am

Thanks works great

Mark
On January 26th, 2008
4:12 pm

totally worked… good job. thanks!

Frank
On February 26th, 2008
4:25 pm

Geat program. Worked instantly.

Lynn
On March 25th, 2008
9:03 am

I was just about to throw this thing away. You ROCK!!!

BKaF - Brad Kovach and Friends - 5 Certifiably Open-Source (and awesome) Windows Utilities
On June 2nd, 2008
7:45 pm

[...] Print Flush [...]

bill gates
On June 4th, 2008
5:54 am

download link doesn’t work.

bill gates
On June 4th, 2008
8:14 am

wo0-H0o!
working now. thanks for a great utility, Brad.

signed,

Bill Gates, Esq.

Kevin Squire
On June 17th, 2008
1:44 pm

Great little script.. may I make 2 suggestions…

Suggestion #1) add some comments at the top so that (a) should I want to see if there are any updates I can remember where to go and (b) maybe include a note about the licensing and directions?!

After I downloaded it, I added this to mind:
:: Latest version available at http://www.bradkovach.com/printflush/
:: Licensed under GPLv3 – http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
::
:: DIRECTIONS:
:: 1. Save somewhere where you can find it.
:: 2. Double-click the file
:: 3. Try printing again!

Suggestion #2) Add the text version of the license to the zip file. This is the preferred way as noted on the GNU site: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html

Again – great work… make it real easy for me to share with my “not so techy” co-workers how to complete a simple, but techy solution.

Marilynn
On July 2nd, 2008
6:43 pm

Thank you so much for this great flusher, it did the job. I was almost stark raving mad last night, couldn’t print one darn photo. I had scanned something and tried to print but stalled out. Tried and tried to delete job in que and it was still there! All seemed hopeless. I had been looking forward to finally printing a few pics. Took me a while to get around to this and bought a good supply of paper and ink. Now today I’m very happy with the results and new jobs are printing fine.

B.K. and Friends ……….Woooooooot

Mike
On July 2nd, 2008
8:52 pm

it really works! gotta try this!

monica
On July 4th, 2008
3:31 pm

I wanted to send you a thank you for the printflush application. Our printer stopped printing on 6/30 because of a document stuck in the queue. I was ready to go through the hellacious task of uninstalling and reinstalling because none of the other tips I found online worked. I saw your reply on a board and decided to take a chance.
Worked like a charm!!

THanks so much.

Victor Nguyen
On July 20th, 2008
10:20 pm

Thank you, it worked. Finally I can used the printer. It works perfectly.

jay
On July 24th, 2008
10:45 am

wonderful, wonderful, thank you, thank you.

miukat
On September 13th, 2008
12:40 pm

U rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ombretta
On September 19th, 2008
9:04 pm

Didn’t work for me … too bad!

Beonce Knowles
On September 29th, 2008
12:26 pm

Wow! What a great utility! Now I can print out my song lyrics again!

S U P E R!

Robert
On October 12th, 2008
12:32 am

Had issues printing to a Canon printer when on wireless and found by accident that setting the print spooler the printer responed as if on the Lan. Print Flush did it for me, a really great utility that I’ve now added to a Desktop Icon for ease of running.

John
On November 2nd, 2008
11:32 pm

This is the best script ever!

Joe Livingston
On November 9th, 2008
7:57 pm

Had serious print spooler problems, I was out of business. Your .bat file put me back in business.

Thanks

Clear Print Queues | TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles
On December 11th, 2008
8:16 am

[...] Download Print Flush [...]

Graham
On February 10th, 2009
6:34 pm

Good stuff… fixed the problem with my P.O.S. work inkjet printer beautifully. Thanks.

Chad
On February 17th, 2009
3:36 pm

Thank you! My kung-fu was weak but yours did the trick.

Kipango
On March 21st, 2009
9:46 am

It really works! Keep up the good work.

Andy M
On March 27th, 2009
4:12 pm

Re: previous comment about HP Photosmart — On second thought maybe it did work. It didn’t make it disappear from the pending documents but I was able to print. Was also getting low cartridge messages interfering with things, so … carry on, good man.

Kieran
On April 22nd, 2009
5:47 am

Needed to power cycle my HP Laserjet 1020 to complete the flush.

K.O.Tic
On May 4th, 2009
11:05 am

Paperclips, Post-its, Print Flush – oh so simple, but oh so efficient! Thanks a million!

Selaine
On May 12th, 2009
8:03 pm

Doesn’t work for me. Too bad because it sounds like a gem for everyone else. My printed files just stay in the queue saying they are ‘deleting’. Bummer.

jumo
On August 17th, 2009
9:30 am

YES!! Boarding pass printing accomplished and arms raised! Bless you down to the toes — you renew my faith in the species’s ability to master its own technology.

Hungs
On August 24th, 2009
12:39 am

Great work man… a little application that work big… thanks

andrie
On October 27th, 2009
1:17 pm

How to run on the limited user ? i use xp pro. thanks

captainclean
On November 1st, 2009
6:41 am

brad you are the MAN !!

your neat little program sorted out my printer right away

Charles

Jim Michaels
On November 13th, 2009
2:47 am

does this utility need to be updated to work with windows 7? apparently there is a print fixit tool in windows 7. possibly this is something that should be started instead? I don’t know. can you still clear the print spooler in the same way with 7 as with xp or vista?

what about windows 98 and ME? I would like it to work on windows 9x/me (of course those OS’s usually just lock up).

Jim Michaels
On November 13th, 2009
3:08 am

@echo off
rem FIND and VER are utilities that come with MSDOS and were posted to and come with Windows in all versions.
rem http://www.ehow.com/how_4616799_remove-stuck-job-printing-queue.html

SET wnversion=unknown

VER | FIND “4.00.950″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=95
VER | FIND “4.00.111″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=95osr2
VER | FIND “4.03.1212″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=95osr2.1
VER | FIND “4.03.1213″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=95osr2.1
VER | FIND “4.03.1214″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=95osr2.5

VER | FIND “4.10.1998″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=98
VER | FIND “4.10.2222″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=98se

VER | FIND “4.90.3000″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=me

VER | FIND “5.0″ > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=2000

VER | FIND “5.1.” > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 EQU 0 SET wnversion=xp

VER | FIND “5.2.” > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=2003

VER | FIND “6.0.” > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=vista

VER | FIND “6.1.” > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=7

rem VER | FIND “6.1″ > NUL
rem IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET wnversion=2008

if “%wnversion%”==”2000″ goto donetspoolerthing
if “%wnversion%”==”xp” goto donetspoolerthing
if “%wnversion%”==”2003″ goto donetspoolerthing
if “%wnversion%”==”vista” goto donetspoolerthing
if “%wnversion%”==”2008″ goto donetspoolerthing

if “%wnversion%”==”95″ goto do9xthing
if “%wnversion%”==”95osr2″ goto do9xthing
if “%wnversion%”==”95osr2.1″ goto do9xthing
if “%wnversion%”==”95osr2.5″ goto do9xthing
if “%wnversion%”==”98″ goto do9xthing
if “%wnversion%”==”98se” goto do9xthing

if “%wnversion%”==”me” goto domething
echo unknown Operating System.
echo batch file needs to be updated.
echo contact jmichae3@yahoo.com
echo and tell him what OS print fix needs to work with.
goto end

:donetspoolerthing
net stop spooler
del /q %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*
net start spooler
goto end

:do9xthing
goto end

:domething
goto end

:end

Jim Michaels
On November 13th, 2009
3:28 am

Brad, 2 things.
1. I would like to take your batch file and make a cross-platform version that works from windows 9x-7. I already have working detection code which uses
VER | FIND “4.90.3000″
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 set wnversion=me
…
IF “%wnversion%”==”me” GOTO doMEstuff
…
:doMEstuff
…
I will be offering the file at
http://jesusnjim.com/using-computers/stuck-print-jobs.html

2. GPL’d source code files must contain a certain text within in it in order to be GPL. so you are probably going to have to put it in REM statements. read http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
to see what text needs to go in.
to prevent angle brackets from executing, use a ^ in front of them, so you may need to modify the text a little to prevent weirdness.

BKaF – Brad Kovach and Friends