Open the pod bay doors, printer.

February 15, 2009 6:32 PM

Up until recently my printer worked fine, but today a document wouldn't go through, so I tried clearing the print queue, etc., and then finally decided to reinstall the printer. I removed the printer, but it's still listed in the control panel and Windows will not let me reinstall. How can I completely clear it and get it working again?

I'm using Windows 7 and here is a screenshot of the device manager. The printer name isn't even listed, since the driver has been removed, but I have no way to remove this "ghost" printer. I checked for the printer in the registry, but I see no record of it. Windows will not automatically reinstall it because it thinks it's already installed...

posted by Aanidaani to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Have you rebooted your computer?
posted by jabberjaw at 6:37 PM on February 15

Yes, I rebooted several times and the printer keeps showing up. When the printer is off the icon is greyed out, and when it's on its lit up, so it must still be recognizing the printer.
posted by Aanidaani at 6:40 PM on February 15

I had a problem with this recently, and it ultimately turned out to be a usb cable that went 'bad', I tried doing everything you mentioned, removing the driver, reinstalling, but not being able to remove the 'ghost' printer. Apparently there was enough signal from the flakey usb to detect the printer, but not good enough to print, reinstall.
posted by edman at 7:25 PM on February 15

Have you stopped the spooler? That is what gums up my printer.
posted by fish tick at 5:44 AM on February 16

None of these suggestions worked for me. I ended up using System Restore, which did the trick. I guess I just won't ever try to uninstall my printer again.
posted by Aanidaani at 3:00 PM on February 16