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Sometimes Windows XP won’t let you delete a print job even if you try rebooting. Thijs stops you from being able to print anything else.

Here’s how to start over.

Click on the Start menu, and then Run.

In the Run dialog box, type (or copy and paste) the following:

net stop spooler

Hit Enter.

A black window will appear. Ignore it.

Find this folder: C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers

(an easy way to do this is to open the Run dialog box again and copy and paste in the above.)

Delete all the files in that folder (but not the folder itself)

Once the spool files are deleted, open the Run dialog box again, and type (or copy and paste) the following:

net start spooler

You should now have an empty print queue.

My thanks to Gizmos Grabowksi for the tip.

Filed under: medium

Great tool, but lousy—like all members of the Windows Live family—in terms of installing and uninstalling. Shame really.

Anyway, here’s how to uninstall Windows Live Writer if you need to. Maybe there’s an easier way but I couldn’t find it, either in the Start menu or the Add/Remove Programs folder in XP.

Dig down in your folders to the folder C:\Program Files\Windows Live\ .(In Windows 7 it’s C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Installer\ .)  In there should be a program called wlarp.exe.

Launch it.

You’ll be offered two choices: Uninstall or Repair.

Clicking on uninstall will throw up a list of Live programs you’ve got installed already:

Select the one(s) you want to remove and off you go.

All pretty straightforward, once you’ve found the uinstaller.

(Sadly uninstalling and reinstalling didn’t fix my problem, but that’s another story.)

Filed under: medium

If you’re using Windows XP, viewing pictures as thumbnails in Windows Explorer can be a drag, since they’re kinda small.

Here’s a relatively simple way of increasing them.

Download MIcrosoft’s own free utility called Tweak UI. Here’s the link: http://is.gd/a1Qc

Once it’s installed, launch it, expand the Explorer branch and click on Thumbnails.

In the Thumbnail box, enter a figure between 96 and 256 (the bigger the number, the bigger the size of the thumbnail.)

(You can also alter the quality of the thumbnail image  via the slider above it.)

Click on Apply.

Test out your new setting by opening My Pictures or another folder with images in it. You may have to close the folder if it’s already open and then re-open it to see the settings. (The images can include PDFS, or Adobe Acrobat files, by the way.)

Tweak the settings until you’re happy.

(With thanks to Aseem Kishore of Online Tech Tips)

Filed under: medium