Unable to remove mapped network printer

[Guest]

I am running into a strange anomaly on a Windows Vista Business install. End
user has 2 mapped network copiers in the printers folder. The drivers which
are used were Win XP drivers and NOT vista drivers. They worked for about 2
days and then the print spooler would crash each time the tried to print
anything. When you try to remove the printers, they cannot be deleted. The
message says that the printer drivers are in use. The spooler crashes and
you have to restart the service. I have tried to remove it using the print
management console under the admin tools and even tried to remove just the
drivers using the same utility. I have also tried to remove it using the
"run as" within the printer folder itself with no success... FRUSTRATING!!
Does anyone have any idea where I can get info on this or better yet, does
anyone have any ideas?

 

[Malke]

I am running into a strange anomaly on a Windows Vista Business install. End
user has 2 mapped network copiers in the printers folder. The drivers which
are used were Win XP drivers and NOT vista drivers. They worked for about 2
days and then the print spooler would crash each time the tried to print
anything. When you try to remove the printers, they cannot be deleted. The
message says that the printer drivers are in use. The spooler crashes and
you have to restart the service. I have tried to remove it using the print
management console under the admin tools and even tried to remove just the
drivers using the same utility. I have also tried to remove it using the
"run as" within the printer folder itself with no success... FRUSTRATING!!
Does anyone have any idea where I can get info on this or better yet, does
anyone have any ideas?

You need to stop the print spooler service first. Open an elevated cmd
and do:

net stop spooler [enter]

Then try and right-click/disconnect (or delete if that option is
offered) the copiers. After the copiers are gone, you can restart the
print spooler service using the elevated cmd:

net start spooler [enter]

If this doesn't work for you, try in Safe Mode.


Malke