How to remove a printer in windows 7 completely: ways, step by step

Sometimes it happens that a person has not used a specific printing device for a long time, but it is still in the list of equipment in the OS interface. The driver of this printer is still on the PC, it sometimes additionally loads the operating system. That is, you must uninstall the driver.

When you need to remove a printer from the registry

Why uninstall the driver: for starters, during the appearance of certain malfunctions during its operation or the inability to install new drivers if you do not uninstall the old ones.

Naturally, other reasons are also likely - for example, the printer just broke down and there is no way to use it, so a new MFP was purchased.

Printer removal methods

It is possible to completely uninstall the printer driver from a computer that runs on Windows 7 using special applications or using only the operating system tools.

Reference! The first method is the simplest, but the latter is much more reliable. In addition, in this case, it will not be necessary to additionally install various programs.

Removing a printer in Windows 7 completely: step by step

Main steps:

1. To uninstall the printer from Windows and remove all its additional files, first you need to go to the "Control Panel" menu, which contains a list of connected equipment.
2. Find the required device among the entire list of specified devices. Open the menu - for this, click on the shortcut with the right mouse button.
3. In the list that appears, find and click on the item that launches the uninstall program for this equipment. This removes the print driver.
4. Re-enter the “Run” command line, select “Services.msc” to go to the “Services” section. You can get to the section in the "Control Panel" using administration. Here you need to select "Print Management", click on the icon with the right mouse button. In the list that appears, select the file that is responsible for restarting this service.
5. The performed manipulations will restart the above service. This procedure is required to correctly uninstall the driver.
6. Then you need to contact the print server. Re-open "Run", specify "printui / s / t2" on the command line. After that, a menu appears with the print server settings.
7. Go to the tab in which all the drivers are located, then find the option related to a particular hardware and, having ticked it, click “Delete”.

These were the main stages. But this is not the final process, because with these actions absolutely not all files of the printing device on the PC will be deleted. Therefore, you need to do the following:

1. Go to "Print Management".
2. In the new menu, you need to find “Filter settings”, then click “Drivers”.
3. After the above steps, the drivers will be visible on the left side.
4. Find the equipment and, having entered its parameters, click the uninstall button.

Application Removal Panel

Then you need to uninstall the software related to the specific printing equipment. Why you need to use the tools of Windows 7 using the application removal panel.

Search the list of software for everything that relates to the printer and uninstall. Moreover, this method is suitable for any version of Windows. Only in Windows 10 does the name of the items for printers differ.

Cleaning Program Files

But before you reinstall the equipment or connect a new printing device to the computer, you need to clean the "garbage". Why go to the "Program Files", uninstall here all the files related in a certain way to the printer.

Registry cleaning is also required. Why in the menu "Run" you will need to write "regedit". In the new menu, select "Edit" and then click on the "Find" section in the list. Enter the name of the printing equipment in the search engine of this menu and click "Next." Everything related to the printing device is highlighted. In this case, you only need to delete these files until the program displays information that there is nothing on demand.

Attention! Then you just need to reboot the PC and, if necessary, install a new driver or perform other manipulations that the old software did not allow.

Driver cannot uninstall

Sometimes it happens that the printing device cannot be uninstalled. It is necessary to find the registry by going into "regedit", typing "Run."

Then go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Print \ Environments \", look for "PrintProcessors". Files must be called differently, for example, instead of copy write copy_hold. Then go to the print manager, removing the necessary device from there, turn off the service. After back, rename the files and turn on this manager again. Due to these actions, it will probably be possible to solve the issue of uninstalling the printer driver.

If the above option could not help, you can do the following:

1. Go to the "Printers". Find the required equipment here, then uninstall.
2. Enter the “Control Panel”, after the “Service”. Find "Manage Printers", turn off this feature.
3. Go into the registry, go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Print \ Environments \ Drivers \".
4. Find the program to uninstall from your computer, now you need to name it differently.
5. Re-open the print manager, uninstall the device from it, as indicated at the beginning of the article.

The most important reason for equipment malfunctioning is software that was installed from unverified sources. Therefore, to uninstall it, you must follow the recommendations that were described above. So you can solve the problem with the printer.