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I've the odd situation that my printer prints somewhat normally, but it appears twice in the new Windows 11 printer's list, one time unselectable and undeletable, and one time normally.

The screenshot explains this better, I think.

My question is simple, since the button for Remove of the printer can only be selected after clicking it, and this printer cannot be clicked, how do I remove it? Not sure how it got there in the first place, but since printing only works half the time, I like to get rid of it.

It's the top one (btw, the message "Driver is unavailable" only appears sometimes) here:

enter image description here

PS, what I've tried:

  • I went to Device Manager. This one cannot be found under "Print queues" (whatever was wrong with "Printers" is beyond me, as unless I'm actually printing, the active printer cannot be found there either...)
  • The printer does not show up when I try to print something, the others do.
  • I need to restart the Print Spooler from time to time, which may or may not be caused by a rogue driver
  • The usual things: restart, run the troubleshooter, reconnect & restart printer etc.
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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You can try to uninstall the printer using the command prompt (CMD):

First, list all installed Printers to get the Printer's name:

wmic printer get name

Once located, delete it with the following command:

printui.exe /dl /n "Your_Printer_Name"
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  • That's the weird thing: wmic printer get name does not list the printer that's on the top of that screenshot. It's as if it doesn't exist. Maybe I'll search the registry manually.
    – Abel
    Commented Jan 25 at 14:04
  • try looking for it in here, delete it, and restart the machine: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers;
    – Luis Alberto Barandiaran
    Commented Jan 26 at 0:43
  • Another thing to try: 1 - Open the Device Manager (devmgmt.msc); 2 - Enable View -> Show hidden devices; 3 - Expand Print queues and Printers sections and see if it appears there. If it is, try to delete it.
    – Luis Alberto Barandiaran
    Commented Jan 26 at 0:45
  • Thanks. Under that registry key, the printer is not listed, and clicking Show hidden devices does list an extra printer, but only when that one is offline. It does not list the top one in the screenshot of my question. It is odd, right?
    – Abel
    Commented Jan 27 at 16:18
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posting here because I happened to have this exact same issue and found the solution on another thread:

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/remove-a-printer-with-driver-not-available.9461/post-294364

The answer posted here finally worked for me; I was getting frustrated since a bunch of other posts kept saying to just follow the standard steps to remove a printer, none of which worked in this case. Hope this helps!

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