OneNote being periodically set as default printer

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OneNote somehow keeps being set as my default printer. This problem has been plaguing me for years.

I have a subscription to Office 365 Personal. I’m running 64-bit Windows 7 Home on a Dell XPS 8700 with 8 MB of RAM. If I reset the default printer to another printer, it keeps that setting for an indeterminate period of time, but at some point, I find that OneNote is once again set as the default printer. I have Office 365 set up to automatically download and install updates. I have Windows Update set to notify me of available Windows updates, but to let me choose when to download and when to install them. I follow Woody’s and Susan Bradley’s recommendations on when to install the Windows updates.

I’ve searched the Internet for months and have found no good answer to the default printer resets, but I have found many other frustrated users with the exact same problem. Most of the suggested solutions consist of telling people to reset the default printer, but as I’ve explained above, this is not a permanent fix as OneNote will eventually be set as the default printer with no action on anyone’s part.

I did find a few posters who speculated that the default printer may be reset during Office 365’s periodic updates. I would think that the number of people who want OneNote to be their default printer would be vanishingly small so I don’t understand how this problem even came to be, but here we are.

If anyone has a fix for this issue, I would be forever grateful.

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I doubt that I have a solution to your problem – with which I sympathise, as I have not found any use for OneNote.  OneNote lines up alphabetically in the Devices and Printers line-up, and must become the default printer when the one above it becomes no longer valid.  I can’t quite write out the circumstances that must lead to OneNote’s inserting itself into that role, but they do exist.

Do you want to have OneNote on your machine?  You can always remove it.

Now the coding guys who inhabit this forum may ride to your rescue with something else that is far more sophisticated than this, but that’s my two pennyworth at this stage.  Anyway, let this not become a group rant about OneNote!

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Elly

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ScotchJohn, from what I’ve read on my numerous online forays, OneNote (or Excel or Word or PowerPoint or Publisher or Access) cannot be removed from Office 365. I actually do use all of these except for Access and Publisher.

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Yesterday I deleted the printer driver “Send to One Note” that was listed under “Devices and Printers”. I seem to recall that I already tried this a long time ago and the printer driver reappeared at some point. I’m going to check every day to see if it does reappear and then try to see if it happened simultaneously with an Office 365 update.

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I just now checked my printers and devices and saw that the “Send to One Note” printer driver has once again appeared and was set as the default printer.

I also checked and saw that MS Office 365 had updated itself early in the morning on Feb. 17 (yesterday). So it certainly looks like the Office 365 update restored the “Send to One Note” printer driver and set it up as the default printer.

You just can’t kill the thing.

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… though, the original question was specific to Windows 7.

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mn– wrote:

… though, the original question was specific to Windows 7.

Thanks. I’ll delete my Windows 10 answer as I can’t now edit it.

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It does not appear to be limited to Windows 7. I’ve seen many reports of users running Win 8 and could probably find more running Win 10 (most of the posts are older ones—that’s how far back this issue goes).

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Slatus – I’m sorry, and you’re right, OneNote is not in the list of “Programs and Features” capable of removal through Control Panel; it also does not show in Revo Uninstaller’s list of Programs.  So, you’re stuck with it, I’m sorry to say.  And you are as hospitable towards it as I would be in your shoes.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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