Printers and Printing
How to completely remove a networked printer driver in Windows Vista
On occasion, printer settings will become corrupted and the only way to fix them is to completely remove the drivers and settings. To do so, complete the following steps:
Remove the printer from your printer list (Control Panel > Printers. Then right-click the printer and hit Delete). For this example, we will be using MGH-370N-HP4050.
Hit Start and type regedit into the search box. Press Enter. YOu may get a popup box asking you to confirm you really want to do this. Hit continue. This will bring up the Registry Editor.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\WIndows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3. Delete the folder that corresponds to the printer model you deleted previously (for example, HP Laserjet 4050 Series) by right-clicking the folder and hitting Delete.
Then navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections\. Delete the folder containing the name of the printer you deleted in the first step, in this case ,,printserv,MGH-370N-HP4050.
Restart the computer. It will automatically re-add the printer you deleted and download a fresh set of drivers from the print server. This may take 5-10 minutes. After that the printer will be ready to use as before.
Last update: 2008-03-03 10:45
Author: Alice Tsoi
Revision: 1.1
