Can't delete printer - Access Denied

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
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Bill

A friend has a Toshiba laptop running Vista Home. He has a printer that
cannot be deleted. When I attempt to delete the printer from Control
Panel | Printers I get an "accesss denied" error. The printer had five
documents in the queue. I cannot cancel the documents (no error message
is given).

There are two user accounts on the computer. I have tried to delete the
printer from both accounts and get the same error with both. I enabled
the Administrator account, logged on as Administrator tried to delete
both the documents and the printer. I could not delete the documents
(no error message) and I got the same "access denied" error when I
tried to delete the printer.

How do I delete the printer? Note that I am very new to Vista so I need
the answer for dummies.:) Thanks.
 
Since you are not the printer owner and the printers folder is opened in
user context, you are getting the proper Access Denied message. If you do
not own the print job, you will need to open the printer queue view using
Run as administrator.

Open the printers folder, right click, select Run as administrator, Open

After credential prompts you will be able to delete the scheduled jobs . If
there is some 3rd party print monitor tools that reference the job, the
spooler will not delete the job until the application decrements the
reference counts.

Once the jobs are deleted, right click the printer, select Run as
administrator, Delete.


--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Thanks Alan but when I right click the printer icon there is no Run As
Administrtor choice on the context menu.
 
Alan said:
is this a local printer or a connection to a shared printer
Click to expand...

Good question. It is on a Vista Home system that I do not have easy
access to. It is probably a local connection but I cannot be sure. What
is the easiest way to tell? I don't know much about Vista and my friend
is a typical home user who is also new to Vista.
 
Alan said:
is this a local printer or a connection to a shared printer
Click to expand...

I have a borrowed Vista Business laptop (which I must return later
today). I added both a local printer and a network printer. I right
clicked the icon for each printer and neither of them has Run As
Administrator on the context menu. I must be missing something.

I also do not understand why logging on as a user other than
Administrator and using Run As Administrator will let me delete the
print jobs and the printer when enabling the Administrator account and
logging on as Administrator will not let me delete either the print
jobs or the printer.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.
 
Is User account control enabled?

Does the admin user have a password set?

For the local printer did you just create a fake printer or did you use a
device that you plugged into the laptop and the Plug and Play portion of the
OS installed the device.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Alan said:
Is User account control enabled?
Yes.


Does the admin user have a password set?
No.


For the local printer did you just create a fake printer or did you
use a device that you plugged into the laptop and the Plug and Play
portion of the OS installed the device.
Click to expand...

The printer was connected to the PC. I did not do it but I assume that
PNP created the printer entry. This happened when the user was trying
to connect to install a network printer on an XP Home machine on his
home network and could not. He claims that he then connected the
printer directly to the Vista PC and that is the printer that cannot be
deleted.
 
without the Run as administrator menu selection, you have two choices.

Start
All Programs
Accessories
Command Prompt, Right Click
Run as Administrator (if that's not there then the reason you don't see it
for the printer is the same and unrelated to printing)

Open Task Manager
terminate the explorer.exe process

from the elevated command prompt type
explorer.exe

(this is now the explorer running in elevated privilege)

Open the printers folder and delete the printer. If that fails open the
printer properties, Security, Advanced, Owner and make the
machine\administrator owner of the queue rather than System.


now delete

get back to me for options 2.
--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
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