Can't remove printer drivers in Windows 7 - The Specified Printer Driver is Currently in Use
( 8 Votes )Recently had to delete some network printers drivers on couple of Windows 7 machines.
As usual went to Print Server > [computer] > Drivers > [driver] > Remove Driver Package
After confirming removal by clicking Delete was presented with an error message:
Failed to remove driver [driver name]. The specified printer driver is currently in use.
In Windows XP these kind of issues would be normally resolved by deleting printer and restarting Print Spooler service. Unfortunately in this case it didn’t work.
A quick search online revealed that often recommended solution is to delete printer from every single user profile who was ever logged on this machine. I had over 10 user profiles on this machine so wasn’t very keen to try it.
I found another, quicker way to achieve the same result. The trick is to delete the driver immediately after restarting print spooler service.
- Open Devices and Printers and remove device(s) which is using drivers in question.
- Open Print Management and Services management consoles side by side.
- In Print Management right click on the driver you want to remove and click Remove Driver Package
- A confirmation dialog will pop up
- In Services right click on Print Spooler and click Restart
- While Print Spooler is restarting, move your mouse cursor to Print Management dialog Delete button and immediately after Print Spooler restarts click Delete
This worked for me every time. You have to be very quick though, a split second can make all the difference.
Comments
Saved me from a lot more googling. wish you were the first result though, as i spend like an hr just searching around.
Thanks again!
For those who don't know how to open 'Print Management'. It is under 'Start Menu' -> 'Administrative Tools'. If you don't see the 'Administrative Tools' then do this . Right Click 'Start Menu' -> Properties -> customize. Enable the display of 'System administrative tools'. And you will be able to see it.
Tried this solution and it worked perfectly. Made me think about why it works. Could it be because the print spooler is not fully started yet? I mean, would it still work if we just STOP the print spooler, remove the driver package, and the START it again?
Thanks!
thanks !!
Thanks for your tip!
net stop spooler
net start spooler
i tried the XP way, net stop and then net start spooler, it just did not work. but need your steps and the right moment for the restart.
thanks heap.
i.e following from HP download page gives three different drivers with three different PDL options:
Some further refinement to this that I found worked for me;
When restarting the spooler service, there is a green progress bar which runs from 0-100% a few times. Presumably the first time is for for stopping the service. On my machine it took about 1 second for the first run of the progress bar to get to 100%. Only after that first progress bar has reached 100% and the progress bar goes back to 0% could I click delete in Print Management and successfully delete the driver in question.
I hope that helps some people.
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