Computer Software Blues....
Jan. 12th, 2004 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tn3270Have had really good luck with Windows XP, and still pretty much like it, but had a weird and annoying thing happen yesterday. Was using the Opera Web Browser (which I also like), and got a crash. OK, these things happen. However, from that point on, even after power off reboots I could not print. The Windows print spooler kept crashing which means no local printer support. Note that I was NOT printing when the crash happened. In complete paranoia I virus scanned my computer with the latest virus data file: it was clean.
After a some trial and error, I managed to fix the problem by hand deleting the Windows print spool files (scratch files). Somehow the crash corrupted these files (even though I was not printing), and once they were corrupted, the OS print spooler system did not work. Once I deleted them, they were recreated automatically and all was well. This is annoying. I had to go into folders that Windows explicitly warns you not to touch and delete files by hand to fix the problem.
If this had happened to someone who is not familiar with hacking PCs I think they would have either had to do a Windows reinstall, or get a consultant. So much for end user computing.
After a some trial and error, I managed to fix the problem by hand deleting the Windows print spool files (scratch files). Somehow the crash corrupted these files (even though I was not printing), and once they were corrupted, the OS print spooler system did not work. Once I deleted them, they were recreated automatically and all was well. This is annoying. I had to go into folders that Windows explicitly warns you not to touch and delete files by hand to fix the problem.
If this had happened to someone who is not familiar with hacking PCs I think they would have either had to do a Windows reinstall, or get a consultant. So much for end user computing.
