Sometimes you have to face the need to solve the problem related to how to completely remove a printer in windows 7. A variety of problems can be the source of the need for such an action. For example, a complete removal of printer drivers may be required if the device refuses to print (the operation cannot be completed), some error appears, or its driver is already very outdated and needs to be replaced with the current version. In any case, in order to correctly remove the printer from a computer running Windows 7, you should carefully read the following recommendation.
The content of the article
Sequencing
- To remove the mfp from the system and clear any mention of it, first of all open the section in the “Control Panel”, where a list of connected devices and printers is presented. You can also get there using the “Run” program (Windows + R), where you should type in the command “control printers”.
- Find the required printing device among the list of presented devices. Call its context menu – to do this, right-click on its icon.
- Find and click on the item that launches the function of removing this device from the list presented. This will allow you to erase the printer driver.
- Open the Run window again and type the “Services.msc” command in there to start the Services add-in. You can find this add-in through the “Control Panel” by going to the administration section. There you need to click on the service called “Print Manager” and right-click on it. In the drop-down list, click on the item responsible for restarting this service.
- The actions taken will reboot the above-named service. This procedure is necessary for the printer driver to be uninstalled normally.
- Now you will need to pay attention to the print server. Again, use the Windows + R keyboard shortcut to run the Run program and type in the “printui / s / t2” command. As a result of this action, a window with print server properties will open in front of you.
- Find and go to the tab where all the drivers are listed, then find the option that applies to your printing device and, having checked it, click on the “Remove” button.
This completes the main part of the steps aimed at solving the problem of how to completely remove the printer in Windows 7. However, this is not all, since using the above steps, not all traces of the printer’s presence on your computer can be removed. Therefore, you should proceed to the next steps:
- Open the add-in called “Print Management” by first opening the “Run” program window and entering the “printmanagement.msc” command there.
- In the new window, you should go to the section “Custom filters”, and from there click on “All drivers”.
- As a result of the described manipulations, a list of drivers will appear on the left side of the add-in window responsible for printing management.
- Find your equipment among them and, opening its context menu, click on the delete item.
Using the uninstall panel
Now you need to uninstall all software applications related to your printer or all-in-one device. To do this, you need to use the standard Windows 7 OS tools through the uninstallation panel. Find everything related to your device among the list of installed software and uninstall it. It should be added that this method is suitable not only for Windows 7, because it can be used on windows 10, 8, and XP. In the latter version, the only difference is the name of the section for office equipment.
We clear “Program Files” and the registry
But before reinstalling the device or connecting a new printer to the PC, you should clear all the junk. To do this, open the “Program Files” folder and delete from there all those folders that could in one way or another be associated with your office equipment. You will also need to clean the registry. To do this, open “Run” and type the “regedit” command into the only field of this program. In the window that appears, you should click on “Edit” and in the list that opens, click on the item “Find”. Enter the name of your printing device in the search field and click on “Find Next”. Everything connected with the printer will be highlighted by the program. In this case, you just have to start deleting all these items until a message appears stating that nothing more suitable was found.
Now all you have to do is reboot the computer and, if necessary, install the latest working driver or perform some other actions that the old software interfered with.
What to do if the driver won’t uninstall
But it so happens that the Windows 7 printer is not deleted. What to do in this situation? To do this, you can open the registry by running it using the “regedit” command, which you need to drive into the “Run” window. After that open the branch
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet
Control Print Environments Windows “and go to” Print Processors “. Anything you find there, be sure to rename, for example, instead of winprint, enter winprint_old. After that, open the print manager and, after removing your device from it, stop the service. Then rename it back and start the given manager again. By doing this, you may be able to solve the problem of uninstalling the printer driver.
If the described method does not help you, then follow these steps:
- Open the section with devices and printers under the administrator account. Find the device you need there and remove it.
- Go to “Administrative Tools” through the “Control Panel” and click on “Services”. There, find the Print Manager service and stop it.
- Open the registry as described above and go to the branch
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet
Control Print Environments Windows Drivers “. - Find the driver you are unable to uninstall and rename it.
- Start the print service again and remove the printer from there, as described in the first half of this article.