How to Remove Printer Drivers

Sometimes computers will give print problems and you must remove the drivers and reinstall them.

If you simply delete the printer, the drivers will still sit on your hard disk. You need to rip them out of the registry and also delete the folder containing the drivers.

Case in point, I came across this weird error for someone when printing in Internet Explorer:


An error has occurred in the script on this page. 
Line : 2053 
Char: 1 
Error : Invalid procedure call or argument. 
Code: 0 
URL: res/ieframe.dll/preview.js.


A very unhelpful error which googling showed means the printer drivers are corrupt.

In Windows 7 you can click the printer and "Server Properties" appears in the menu. You can then remove the printer driver. You may have to stop the print spooler (go to services.msc and stop it there). This doesn't always work though.

If in doubt, rip it out! (manually remove printer drivers):

Stop print spooler then,


Remove contents of folder:
32-bit:
“C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\W32X86”
64-bit:
“C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64”

Go to regedit and delete these keys:
32-bit:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3”
64-bit:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows x64\Drivers\Version-3”



This will wipe out all installed printers on your computer and you can start again.