Table of Contents
Let’s talk about removing a printer driver, the basics.
You may have several reasons to remove a printer driver.
After uninstalling a printer on your Windows device, the driver itself often remains. Sometimes you can still see it in your device manager as a faulty installed driver. It is also possible that your printer is not working, and you want to install the driver completely, or your printer simply gives error messages and you want to reinstall them.
Most problems are resolved if you completely remove the printer driver and then reinstall the printer itself.
The tutorial contains screenshots.
Let’s start with the tutorial “delete a printer driver”.
Go to start and type in printmanagement.msc.
Open the application.
Go to Print Servers, and open the tab with your computername, now as last open the drivers tab.
Here you can select the faulty driver you want to remove.
Right click the driver and select Remove Driver Package…
Please note that the printer driver is completely removed. If the printer does not install the printer driver by itself after plugging in, you will need to get it from the vendor’s website.
You’ve successfully uninstalled the printer driver.
If you get an error message that the printer driver is currently being used by an application, you can turn off the printer or try to restart the PC. If this still does not work, you can start the PC in safe boot and try again.
Recap
The post originally dated from April 1, 2015. I have reviewed the post and thought that it could be worked out better, which is why the post has been refurbished on 28-6-2018. The content is updated for Windows 10.
Do you have any questions, comments, or other ideas? Then let me know in a comment below.
See also,
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=eu_ot&lang=en&prod=mfc215c_eu_as&faqid=faq00100170_001
Windows 10 only
Actually, Windows “Pro” editions only. The printmanagement.msc is missing on Home versions of Windows. You can use this on Windows 7,8,8.1,10 though. Maybe Vista too.
Error: Fail to Remove Printer Driver in Use
This problem is an issue only when the regular method of re-installing a potentially corrupted printer driver fails to overwrite the corrupted drivers. The next step is to delete the printer and its driver(s). But…
Problem:
When trying to delete the printer and/or its driver you get the following error: “Failed to remove driver (driver name). The specified printer driver is currently in use.”
Fix:
How to delete printer driver:
1. Open Print Management (Run: Windows Key +R “printmanagement.msc”)
2. In “View” tab” Select “Custom View” and tick “Console tree” and “Action pane”>” OK” (This Custom View is not mandatory)
3. Within “All Drivers,” navigate to your printer driver (the one to be deleted): (Print Management > Custom Filters > All Drivers)
4. Right click your printer (in “Driver Name” column) – [Alternatively, in “Actions” column select your printer and select “More Actions”]
5. From the “Driver Isolation” drop-down menu, select “Isolated.”
6. Within “All Printers,” navigate to your printer (the one to be deleted): (Print Management > Custom Filters > All Printers)
7. Right click your printer (in “Printer Name” column) – [Alternatively, in “Actions” column select your printer and select “More Actions”]
8. Select “Properties” (or “Manage Sharing”)
9. In “Sharing” tab, de-select “Share this printer.” Select “Apply” (Then patiently wait for it to “apply”)
10. In “Advanced” tab, select “Print directly to the printer.” Select “Apply.” (Then patiently wait for it to “apply”) [This disables spooling (for this printer), so you can leave the “Print spooler” (“Spooler” in Task Manager) service still running].
11. Within “All Printers” right click your printer and perform “Delete.”
12. Within “All Drivers,” right click your printer and perform “Delete.”
If still not fixed, also try this: In “Properties” > “Security” tab, allow “Manage this printer”