[Editor's Note: Solve this month's Windows NT problem and get the chance to win $100 or a copy of one of the author's books about NT. Email your solutions (don't use an attachment) to challenge@winntmag.com. Include your full name, mailing address, and connection to NT (e.g., administrator, user). Because of the number of entries, we can't reply to all respondents. Look for the solution to this month's problem in the January issue.]
Today is Tom Terrific's first day of work. He meets the network administrator, who establishes Tom's domain user account (i.e., username, password, and user permissions) on the PDC. Back at Tom's cubicle, the administrator watches Tom turn on his computer, select Windows NT Workstation 4.0, and press Ctrl+Alt+Del when the Begin Logon dialog box appears. Tom correctly enters his username and password in the Logon Information dialog box and clicks OK. "Well, you seem to know how to use NT, so I'll just go back to work," the administrator says.
Tom rearranges the icons on his desktop. He opens Windows Explorer and drags the executable files for Microsoft Excel and Word to the desktop to create shortcuts. After going through new-employee orientation, he returns to his cubicle, shuts down his computer, and goes home.
Problem
The next day, Tom arrives bright and early, logs on, and finds the original desktop—not the desktop with his changes. He opens Windows Explorer and goes to the \winnt\profiles directory. He finds the subdirectory named TomT (his logon name) and all the correct subfolders. The Desktop folder has the icons for the shortcuts he created; nevertheless, his desktop isn't the same one he created. Why not? You can make the following assumptions: Tom didn't make any errors entering his logon information; Tom doesn't have a roaming or mandatory profile; when configuring Tom's account on the PDC, the administrator entered all the information, including permissions, correctly.
JULY WINNERS
Congratulations to Ronnon Feldman, a senior systems engineer in Flushing, New York, and to Doug Maust, a network administrator in Liberty, Missouri. Ronnon won first prize of $100 for the best solution to the July Reader Challenge. Doug won second prize of a copy of Windows NT Troubleshooting (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1998).
On the first Friday in July, the accounting department at the Get Rich Investment corporation was in a state of high tension. The staff was struggling to close the month, close the quarter, run the current week's payroll, issue vacation paychecks in advance, and get ahead on their tasks to enjoy a day off on July 4.
By 2:00 p.m., the office was humming. Nancy had finished entering the payroll data, and the checks were printing. John had completed balance sheets, profit-and-loss statements, detailed general-ledger-posting reports, and other data reports for the chief financial officer. John sent the reports to a high-speed laser printer dedicated to reports. Documents were flying out of the printer.
The laser printer suddenly stopped, and the ready light shined reassuringly; however, many reports still hadn't printed. John opened the printer's dialog box and found the least-important job stuck at the top of the queue. The eight reports behind the stuck report were essential. John couldn't pause, cancel, or delete the problem report, nor could he move the other print jobs ahead of it. No other printers were available.
Problem
How did John get the rest of his reports? How did he get rid of a stuck job when he couldn't use the printer's dialog box?
Solution
- Close the Printers folder, and open Control Panel. Open the Services applet, select Spooler listed under Service, and click Stop. (If the printer is also using the TCP/IP service, also stop that service.)
- Open Windows Explorer, and go to the subdirectory. A spooler file (.spl) and a shadow file (.shd) exist for each job. (The spooler file holds the print job, whereas the shadow file holds the properties, such as priority, owner name, and printer name.)
Delete the .spl and .shd files for the problem print job (the stuck job usually has the earliest timestamp). Sometimes you can't delete the .spl file (the system assumes the job to be in process). Try deleting or renaming the .shd file.
- Restart the Spooler service.
You can also ensure that you're clearing the queue by deleting all the files in the \winnt\system32\spool\printers subdirectory. Then, start the Spooler service and resend the print jobs except for the one that had the problem.
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