I want to remove/delete printer/driver from Windows 7, and unable to find any documentation.

Anonymous
2010-05-27T13:20:50+00:00

New DELL computer Windows 7 (less than 30 days old), and want to remove/delete persistant printer/driver.

Was not able to find any documentation on the issue, and neither DELL nor Microsoft are willing to provide any kind of support unless its paid for a product/service that is less than 30 days old.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2011-06-19T11:22:13+00:00

OK, I have found the solution to this problem... the info above is correct as far as it goes, but in my case there was (a) no option to clear the print queue on two 'ghost' printers because they were disconnected and unavailable, so no option for the print queue was displayed, and (b) one was shared on the network and had a TCP/IP printer port assigned to it.

Here's how I did it, step-by-step:

  1. right-click on desktop, create a new shortcut with target as 'cmd.exe'.
  2. right-click on the shortcut, "Run as Administrator"
  3. Run the printui tool:  printui /s /t2
  4. Try deleting the printers. If that doesn't work...
  5. CLick Start > Run > Services.msc
  6. Locate the Print Spooler service, and right-click > Properties > stop service.
  7. Open My Computer and browse to c:\Windows\System32\spool\Printers

(you will need to say "oK" to get access to the folder).

  1. DELETE the contents of that folder.
  2. Restart the Print Spooler service.
  3. Go back into the printui utillity (might need to restart it using same method as above) and try removing printers again. This time it should work. If necessary, check the "Ports" tab and remove any TCP/IP ports that are associated with the old printer.
  4. Last but not least, I checked other computers on my home network to see if any of those had mapped to the old printer, and I removed those mappings, as the date of spooled documents suggested it was printed to long after it was physically removed.

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Anonymous
2010-06-02T22:13:48+00:00

You can remove print drivers that are not associated with a local printer or connection using the printui.exe tool

in an admin elevated command prompt type

printui /s /t2

Be sure to remove the driver AND the package.

Alan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-07-06T21:12:40+00:00

    Thank you!

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-07-21T22:57:27+00:00

    You will need to remove the connection to the printer in all user profiles.  If USER1 has a connection to XEROX DRIVER1 and you log on as an admin user to delete the driver, the connection created by USER1 must be removed before the admin can delete the resource since it is in use by the other user.  Do this for all the user accounts on the machine.

    This is exactly it for those with networked printers in an environment where multiple users use the same computer.  It took me a bit to track this down but this is EXACTLY correct.  

    I had to remove the printer out of 'Devices and Printers' for all of the users of the computer before it would allow me to remove the printer drivers from the machine via 'Print Management' as admin.  No matter how many times you reboot and load directly in as admin, it won't help, you MUST remove the printer connection from all users, then it will allow you to remove the driver as admin.

    So, short recap for those with NETWORK PRINTER and they need to remove drivers from an individual machine.

    1.)  Remove the printer in question from the 'Devices and Printers' section for EVERY user on that machine.

    2.)  As Admin, open the 'Print Management' tool via Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Print Management OR open an elevated command prompt and execute     printui /s /t2    

    3.)  Remove the driver for the printer in question.

    4.)  Close the Management tool or Print Server properties window you used to remove the driver.

    5.)  Continue on with normal operations without the driver causing you trouble.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-07-24T07:52:17+00:00

    Worked well. Thank you

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