How do I remove drivers for printers no longer installed?

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My client’s Windows computer (now with Windows 10 after a surprise installation last Monday!) has two old Canon printers that appear in his list of installed software in Control Panel. I’ve tried to uninstall those items, but in both cases Windows reported that the drivers are “in use.” Those printers are not even on the property. How do I uninstall them?

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You could try Revo uninstaller (as long as they aren’t 64 bit) or Geek uninstaller (my uninstaller of choice)

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Try uninstalling in Safe Mode. Open the Start menu and click on the Power button. Whilst keeping the Shift key pressed, click on Restart.

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If you go to Win 10’s equivalent of All Programs and scroll down to the Canon folder(s) and expand, they should have their own uninstallers.

If a newer Canon printer is installed then each Canon folder will tell you which it applies to.

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Where did you go in Control Panel? Did you go to Devices and Printers and right click on the printers and select Remove? Make sure the print queues for this printer is empty.
You can’t remove printers with an active print queue.

Jerry

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Thanks, everyone, for your very helpful responses.

I now have a little more information. I tried Calimanco’s advice (removing from Safe Mode), but that led to yet another error. I rebooted in Safe Mode, then went through Settings—>System—>Apps & Features; clicked on one of the obsolete printer software items. I chose Uninstall, and one or two steps later I saw, “Process cannot continue because the Print Spooler service has been stopped. Restart the computer to start the Print Spooler … .” That’s the gist of it, anyway. Seems like I’ve seen this Print Spooler thing before, but I don’t remember how to get around it.

jwitalka: I spent some time in Control Panel—>Devices and Printers, and neither of these ghost printers appeared. The only physical printer that was present for duty was the printer that sat on the desk next to the laptop: the Canon Pixma MX492.

I’m not on the site now, so I’ll have to try the tip from Sudo15 another day. It never occurred to me to look in All Apps—>Canon XXXX. Again, thanks to all of you!

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If a newer Canon printer has been installed then the drivers could have a commonality which would produce the “in use” error.

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You can change the status of the Spooler service in services.msc – mine is set to Started and Automatic in Win 7 but I wouldn’t have thought that the version would make much difference.

If it is set to Manual then right click on it and select Properties where you will be able to use the dropdown to change its status to Auto, Start it then reboot.

As you previously got a driver in use error, then as a newer Canon printer is installed then there could be a commonality in the drivers and you may have to uninstall the newer printer first before tackling the older ones.

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