Michael Murray at J & M Home Computer Services wrote:
>
> I have an Epson Stylus Color 400 printer. When I go to print I get the
> message - unable to spool to ""

> Can anyone advise me how to get around this problem? I've uninstalled and
> reinstalled with no luck.

The following is an excerpt from an article from Epson that may help you
with your problem.

This document is written and maintained by representatives of Epson
America, Inc. at, http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/sc400_/sc400_f1.txt

Q:  What are the Epson Spool Manager and Epson Despooler?

A: The Epson Spool Manager manages special spool files called
"journal" files. These contain the print data in an unprocessed
form. The Spool Manager sends this data to the Epson Despooler for
processing. The Despooler processes the data in segments, called
"bands". Once a band is finished, it is sent to the printer for
printing. While the printer prints, the Despooler works on the next
band.

Q:  Why am I getting error messages when printing?

A: If you see conflict error messages or printing is very slow, the
problem may be caused by temporary files in the EPSON Spool Manager
temporary file directory. To change the Spool Manager settings, you
will first need to make a unique directory on your hard drive, such
as C:\SPOOL. Open the Spool Manager4 and make sure the EPSON Stylus
COLOR 400 is selected. Click on Options, select Default Spool
Directory. Change the directory to the new directory you created and
click OK. Open the Queue, Setup and make sure the spool directory
changed to the new unique directory. Make sure the box for "Use
Print Manager for this port" is not checked, then click OK. Close
the Spool Manager, restart the computer and try printing again.

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe the Printer spools to the
Windows Temporary folder. If this is the case, (I have seen this on
several occasions) then you need to empty the folder. You may not have
enough room in it for spooling.

As a side note,I picked up this little Bat file from Fred Langa over at
http://www.langa.com and I use it on a regular basis to keep my Windows
temp folder clean.
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/sept-30-99.htm
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/sept-27-99.htm

In theory, any TEMP or TMP folders (and the files they contain) should
 be safe to delete. And the Win98 cleanup wizard can and will remove
 many files from the temp directory, but not all.

 It's easy, but dangerous, to write a little batch file that will wipe
out the
 TEMP and TMP directories each time your systems starts. In my opinion,
 no essential files should ever be stored in a "temp" directory, but for
 reasons known only to vendors, some install apps store essential files
 needed after a reboot (during an upgrade) in the Temp directory. If you
 wipe out the TEMP/TMP areas during an upgrade reboot, the upgrade
 may not be able to finish.

 So, once a week, when I know it's safe (no upgrades in progress) I boot
 to DOS and run a batch file called cleanup.bat. You can create the same
 file by copying these lines into Notepad, and saving the file as
 c:\cleanup.bat :

         c:\windows\command\deltree /y c:\windows\temp
         del c:\windows\tempor~1\*.zip
         del c:\windows\tempor~1\*.exe

 When you run cleanup.bat (i.e. just type "cleanup" without the quote
 marks at the DOS command prompt), it will completely wipe out the
 Temp directory and any exe or zip files that have made their way into
the
 "Temporary Internet Files" folder. Windows will then create a fresh,
 new and *empty* Temp directory when it runs.

This may clear up the spooling problem.

Sincerely,

Frank Suszka
netTek Computers
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