How To Delete A Printer

Clear And Restart The Print Spooler

Tech Support: How to delete a Printer in Windows 7

Clearing and restarting the print spooler should be your first step when trying to fix stuck print jobs because it wont actually cancel any of your currently printing documents. Instead, it restarts things and proceeds as if all those documents had just been sent to the printer for the first time.

To do this, youll stop the Print Spooler service, delete the temporary cache Windows uses to spool print jobs, and then start the service again. Were going to show you two ways to do this. First, well look at how to do it manually, and then well look at how to create a batch script so that you can do it any time you want with just a click.

Remove Old Printers Via Print Management

The Print Server properties method should do the trick. As an alternative, you can use the Print Management console to remove old printers and their drivers. Print Management is a Microsoft console which lets you view and manage printers and print jobs on the computer.

Open Print Management via Start Search. Or run the command printmanagement.msc to launch Print Management.

Select All printers section.

Go to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

Expand the key and select the old printer listed under the key.

Right-click on the old printer and choose Delete.

Additionally, one of the following subkeys may contain references to your old printers. You may want to clear that as well:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows x64\Drivers\Version-3HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows x64\Drivers\Version-4

The registry had references to my old inkjet printer HP F4488 . I had to delete it and its driver store using earlier methods, as Iâve replaced the HP with a Canon G2012 series printer recently.

Exit the Registry Editor.

Remove A Printer In Powershell

To see more usage options for the Remove-Printer command, see: Remove-Printer | Microsoft Docs

Substitute Printer name in the command above with the actual name of the printer from step 2 you want to remove.For example:Remove-Printer -Name “HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477 PLC 6”

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Fix Printer Problems With An Uninstall And Reinstall In Windows 10

Printers and printing have long been their own special source of frustration in Windows. From early days to the present, printers have been known to behave oddly and even stop working on occasion.

Its gotten better, especially when it comes to installation, but random frustrating things still happen.

I dont have a solution for everything, but I do want to share the first thing I do when a printer goes awry. Id say it resolves over half, maybe as many as 80%, of the cases Im asked about.

Use the Windows 10 settings app to remove your printer from Windows and then add it back again. Doing so re-initializes much of the printers configuration information. While this approach doesnt solve all problems, its a safe and easy first step to fixing printer issues.

How To Remove A Printer From Windows Via The Settings

You can easily add or remove printers from the Settings. Heres how to do it.

Press Win + I to open Settings.

Open the Bluetooth & devices tab in the left pane.

Scroll down and click on Printers & scanners. This will list all the printers connected to your computer.

Next, click on the printer device that you want to remove.

Click the Remove button in the top right corner and click Yes to confirm the action.

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Cancel All Print Jobs

Sometimes you wont be able to remove a printer because there are still active print jobs.

Before you can remove your printer, simply go to Devices and Printers, locate your printer, right-click it and choose to See whats printing option.

Be sure to remove all entries from the printing queue. After removing all printing jobs you should be able to remove your printer without any problems.

If the Devices and printers is not opening in Windows 10, we have an excellent guide that will help you fix the problem.

How To Remove The Printer Using The Control Panel

You can use the classic Control Panel to manage your printer. Useful if the printer wasnt removed correctly during the uninstallation process.

To remove the printer using Control Panel:

Press Win + R to open Run.

Type control and click OK to open Control Panel. You can also search for the app using the Windows search bar.

In Control Panel, go to Hardware and Sound.

Next, click on Devices and Printers.

Under the Printers section, locate and select the printer device you want to remove.

Right-click on the printer and select Remove Device.

Click Yes to confirm the action.

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How To Cancel Or Delete A Stuck Print Job In Windows

Walter Glenn is a former Editorial Director for How-To Geek and its sister sites. He has more than 30 years of experience in the computer industry and over 20 years as a technical writer and editor. He’s written hundreds of articles for How-To Geek and edited thousands. He’s authored or co-authored over 30 computer-related books in more than a dozen languages for publishers like Microsoft Press, O’Reilly, and Osborne/McGraw-Hill. He’s also written hundreds of white papers, articles, user manuals, and courseware over the years.Read more…

Sometimes, documents youre printing get stuck in the printers queue, preventing further documents from being printed. Heres how to fix it when that happens.

Whether youre using a local or , sometimes printing doesnt go quite right. If youve tried troubleshooting obvious printer problemspaper jams, no paper, low ink or toner, or simply restarting the printerits time to turn your attention toward the print queue. Often, simply clearing and restarting the print spoolerthe software that prepares and manages printing documentscan fix the problem. If that fails, you may need to cancel one or more documents in your print queue and see if that gets things going again.

This should work in Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10.

Uninstall Printer Software Using Settings

How To Delete A Printer In Windows 10

If you dont need a particular printer anymore, you can follow the usual steps to uninstall a printer from Settings and then uninstall its software, especially if using a third-party utility.

If the Settings app installed other tools to manage your printer automatically, youll have to manually remove the leftover software.

Open Settings> Devices.

Click Printers & Scanners.

Select your printer, click Remove device, and click Yes when asked to confirm the deletion.

Note: The steps above only remove the printer from the list, so youll need to remove any leftover printer software or related applications.

Open Settings> Apps.

Click Apps & Features and select the printer software youd like to remove.

Click Uninstall and follow the steps to completely remove any leftover printer-related applications.

Read Also: Hp Printer Update Drivers

Remove A Printer Using Powershell

If you prefer PowerShell over Command Prompt, here are the steps to take to remove the printer and related software.

Right-click Start > Windows PowerShell .

Type this command: Remove-Printer Name YOUR-PRINTER-NAME.

Open Settings > Apps > Apps & Features, and click the software you want removed.
Click Uninstall and follow the directions to remove it completely.

What Can I Do If I Get Cant Remove Printer Access Denied Message

If you cant remove printer in Windows 11 or older, its probably because you dont have the administrative privileges. We wrote in-depth about Access is denied guide, so we encourage you to check it our for more solutions.

If that can cause additional problems with it, and prevent you from removing it. This is most likely a configuration or a driver issue.

Few users reported that A deleted printer keeps coming back, and thats a variation of this error, but luckily, this guide will show you how to fix this problem.

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Clear The Print Jobs Queue

As quite a few users have reported, a stuck can also be responsible for preventing the printer from being removed. Some affected users were finally able to remove the stubborn printer by clearing the folder responsible for holding the print jobs.

Heres a quick guide on how to clear the print jobs queue folder:

Press Windows key + R to open up a Run box. Then, paste

C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS

in the Run box and hit Enter to open the folder holding the printing jobs.

Open C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS

Hit Yes at the UAC prompt to get permissions to edit the PRINTERS folder.

If the PRINTERS folder is not empty, delete everything there to free up the printing queue.

Once the PRINTERS folder is empty, try to remove the printer again, then restart your computer.

Set The Print Spooler Service To Manual

Users reported that you can fix this problem by setting the Spooler service to Manual. To do that, open the Services window, locate the Print Spooler service and double click it to open its properties.

Set the Startup type to Manual and click Apply and OK to save the changes.

After that, try to remove your printer. If the uninstall tool mentions Print Spooler service, simply go to Services, locate Print Spooler service and start it.

After that, you should be able to remove your printer without any problems.

Not being able to remove a printer in Windows 10 can be a big problem, but you can usually fix this problem by restarting the Print Spooler service and trying to delete the printer again.

If that doesnt work, be sure to try all other solutions from this article. If you have any of the following issues, the solutions presented above also apply in such cases:

Remove printer drivers Windows 10 Registry sometimes, you can bypass removal errors by editing the registry. Be careful in performing any changes here.
Unable to remove printer windows 10 you are in the right place since if the default way of removing a printer doesnt work, this article has a ton of ways to help you.
How to remove Printer driver from Registry users need a step by step instruction in performing this operation, which we provide in the article.

We hope that our solutions helped you fix the printer problems. Make sure you provide us with your feedback in the comments section below.

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Update The Printer Drivers

7.1 Update the drivers manually

Right-click the Start button and select Device Manager from the list.

Expand Print queues and select your printer.

Right-click your printer and go to Update driver.

Follow the instructions to update the printer driver.

Restart your computer.

If none of the previous workarounds resolved the problem, lets try updating the printer driver to the latest version. Follow the steps above to do that.

7.2Update the drivers automatically

If you dont want the hassle of searching for drivers on your own, you can use a tool that will do this for you automatically.

The software recommended below will help you update drivers automatically and hassle-free with minimum effort on your part.

If you want a capable drivers program to update your printer drivers in minutes, this job is perfectly made for DriverFix

How Do I Remove A Printer Driver For Windows

Follow the procedures below to remove a printer driver.Notes After completing these procedures, you will need to log in as administrator. Remove the printer driver after restarting the computer.The example is for Windows 7.

Right-click your printer’s icon, and then select .To remove a specific printer driver from multiple printer drivers, select the printer driver you wish to remove from .

When the confirmation message appears, click .Notes If a message indicating that the device is in use appears, restart the computer and perform steps 1 and 2 again.

Select an icon from , and then click from the top bar.

Select the tab.

If is displayed, click that.

Select the printer driver to remove, and then click .

If a message appears asking if you want to remove just the printer driver or remove the printer driver and package from the system, select and click .

When the confirmation message appears, click .

When the dialogue appears, click then .Notes If removal is rejected, restart the computer and perform steps 4 to 10 again.

Restart the computer.

Also Check: How To Connect A Wireless Printer To A Mac

Use The Print Server Properties Window To Remove A Printer

If Settings doesnt remove your printer, another way to get rid of your installed printers is to use the Print Server Properties window. This window lists all your printers, and you can pick the one you want to delete from your system.

On Windows 10 and 11:

Open the Start menu, search for Control Panel, and select Control Panel in the search results.

Choose View devices and printers on the Control Panel window.

Find and select your printer.

Choose Print server properties at the top of your screen.

Access the Drivers tab, select your printer in the list, and choose Remove at the bottom.

Select Remove driver and driver package and choose OK in the prompt that opens.

Restart your PC and your printer should be removed.

Remove The Printer From The Printers Folder

How to Remove a Printer from Your HP Smart Account | HP Web Application | HP

The final method in which you can remove a printer from your list of devices is also one of the fastest and most effective ways to do it. Heres a quick guide on removing a printer via the Printers folder:

Open a new Run box by pressing the Windows key + R. Then, paste

explorer shell:::

in the Run box and press Enter to open the Printers folder.

Open Printer Folder

In the Printers folder, right-click on the printer that you wish to remove and choose Delete.

Click Yes to confirm the removal of the printer, then restart your computer to force the changes to take effect.

At the next startup, see whether the printer has been removed from your computer.

Read Next

Also Check: How To Scan From My Hp Printer

Cancel A Print Job From The Printer Control Panel

Cancel the current print job from the printer control panel.

Canceling from the control panel stops only the current job. It does not cancel any other pending print jobs in the queue.

For printers with buttons, press the Cancel button .
For printers with a touchscreen, touch X, Stop, or Cancel.

If you are unable to cancel the print job from the control panel, cancel it from the computer or mobile device that you used to send the job.

How To Uninstall A Printer Using Powershell

If you prefer to use PowerShell, you can use these steps to remove a printer from Windows 10:

Open Start.

Search for Windows PowerShell, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.

Type the following command to queue a list of printers on your device and press Enter:

Get-Printer | Format-List Name

Type the following command to uninstall the printer and press Enter:

Remove-Printer -Name “YOUR-PRINTER-NAME”

In the command, replace the YOUR-PRINTER-NAME with the full name of your printer see step No. 3.

After completing the steps, the printer that you selected will be removed from your computer.

Recommended Reading: How To Get My Canon Printer Back Online

What Did We Just Do

I liken it to a reformat and reinstall of your computer, except limited to the printer. By uninstalling and then reinstalling it, most settings are re-initialized to their default state, and the driver is configured for the correct, current state of your machine.

As I said, it doesnt fix everything, but it does fix a surprising number of problems. Its a good and generally safe first step when tackling printer issues.

Clear The Print Jobs And Then Remove The Printer

A possible reason you cant remove the printer from your Windows 10 or 11 PC is that your printer still has pending print jobs. You should clear these print tasks before uninstalling the printer.

To do so:

Open Control Panel and select View devices and printers.

Right-click your printer and choose See whats printing from the menu.

Cancel all print jobs in the window that opens.

Remove your printer using the Settings app as outlined above.

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Adding A Printer Thats Not Found

If, after some time, Windows has not found your printer automatically, click on The printer that I want isnt listed for a list of alternative ways to install the printer.

These are more advanced techniques, and may require that you have additional information or skills at your disposal.

Theres another approach not listed thats actually more common and easier to perform: click on Cancel, and then visit the printer manufacturers website for the latest drivers and/or installation program for your specific printer. If available, thats generally as simple as running the program and perhaps answering a few questions , after which your printer is re-installed.

Using The Classic Control Panel

The classic Control Panel is another way to remove a printer driver in Windows 11. Here is how:

Open the Start menu and select All apps.

Scroll down the list of apps and open Windows Tools.

Open Print Management in the Windows Tools window.

Expand the Custom Filters option and click All Drivers.

Right-click the driver you want to uninstall at the center of the window.

Click Remove Driver Package and confirm the action.

Done!

Tip: You can directly open the Print Management snap-in using the Win + R shortcut keys and the printmanagement.msc command in the Run dialog. You can find more such commands here.

And that is how you delete a printer driver in Windows 11. It is also worth noting that you better restart your computer before reinstalling the driver you have just removed.

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