Can't uninstall printer driver

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Rado
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave Rado

I am trying to uninstall an Epson printer driver for the 830U. In
"Control Panel/Add/Remove Programs" there is an item called "Epson
Printer Software". If I click "Change/Remove" for it, a dialog pops up
with a "Printer Model" tab, and with "Epson Stylus Photo 830U Series"
highlighted. If I click "OK", it says "Are you sure you want to delete
the printer "Epson Stylus Photo 830U Series"? If I click "Yes", it
comes up with a messagebox saying "Uninstall complete". But it hasn't
uninstalled anything! "Epson Printer Software" is still in the
"Add/Remove Programs" list, and if I click "Change/Remove" again, the
same dialog pops up with a "Printer Model" tab, and with "Epson Stylus
Photo 830U Series" still highlighted. How can I get rid of it?

Dave
 
Dave Rado said:
I am trying to uninstall an Epson printer driver for the 830U. In
"Control Panel/Add/Remove Programs" there is an item called "Epson
Printer Software". If I click "Change/Remove" for it, a dialog pops up
with a "Printer Model" tab, and with "Epson Stylus Photo 830U Series"
highlighted. If I click "OK", it says "Are you sure you want to delete
the printer "Epson Stylus Photo 830U Series"? If I click "Yes", it
comes up with a messagebox saying "Uninstall complete". But it hasn't
uninstalled anything! "Epson Printer Software" is still in the
"Add/Remove Programs" list, and if I click "Change/Remove" again, the
same dialog pops up with a "Printer Model" tab, and with "Epson Stylus
Photo 830U Series" still highlighted. How can I get rid of it?

Dave
Click to expand...

It's possible that in the all programs group that Epson has an uninstall
program to take out its software. Barring that inability, and you have no
other Epson software on your system you could go to go to Regedit.exe and do
a Find and delete of anything with the word Epson. That would eliminate the
drivers from the registry. Additionally I would do a search in Explorer
(file manager) for all files and folders having the Epson name.

However, before going to this degree I would go to the trouble of
reinstalling the driver and then attempting to remove it through the Control
Panel once more. It's completely possible that there is a corrupted
uninstall file and by reinstalling it the problem would be remedied.
 
Hi Jan


Jan said:
It's possible that in the all programs group that Epson has an uninstall
program to take out its software. Barring that inability, and you have no
other Epson software on your system you could go to go to Regedit.exe and do
a Find and delete of anything with the word Epson. That would eliminate the
drivers from the registry. Additionally I would do a search in Explorer
(file manager) for all files and folders having the Epson name.

However, before going to this degree I would go to the trouble of
reinstalling the driver and then attempting to remove it through the Control
Panel once more. It's completely possible that there is a corrupted
uninstall file and by reinstalling it the problem would be remedied.

--
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us
Click to expand...


Reinstalling just installed a duplicate driver ("Epson Stylus Photo
830U Copy 1"), making things even worse. I have tried deleting all
Epson registry entries (which is a real pain because I had several
other Epson drivers for Scanners and other printers) - but there are
some registry entries that I can't delete! When I try to delete any of
the following keys I get the following error message: ""Cannot delete
EPSONStylus_Photo_830U. Error while deleting key." The keys are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT

Any ideas?

Dave
 
Dave Rado said:
Hi Jan





Reinstalling just installed a duplicate driver ("Epson Stylus Photo
830U Copy 1"), making things even worse. I have tried deleting all
Epson registry entries (which is a real pain because I had several
other Epson drivers for Scanners and other printers) - but there are
some registry entries that I can't delete! When I try to delete any of
the following keys I get the following error message: ""Cannot delete
EPSONStylus_Photo_830U. Error while deleting key." The keys are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT

Any ideas?

Dave
Click to expand...


Off the top of my head I haven't a clue. 'Til now I hadn't heard of reg
keys that couldn't be killed. Someone will hopefully clue you in shortly how
to do this. However, may I suggest you post this problem to a couple of
hardware groups ie: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt , and
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt . There is certain to be someone with a good
registry understanding who can help you eliminate these tenacious keys.
I also wonder if starting in safe mode might allow you to eliminate them.
 
Dave Rado said:
Hi Jan





Reinstalling just installed a duplicate driver ("Epson Stylus Photo
830U Copy 1"), making things even worse. I have tried deleting all
Epson registry entries (which is a real pain because I had several
other Epson drivers for Scanners and other printers) - but there are
some registry entries that I can't delete! When I try to delete any of
the following keys I get the following error message: ""Cannot delete
EPSONStylus_Photo_830U. Error while deleting key." The keys are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\EPSONStylus_Photo_830U

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT

Any ideas?

Dave
Click to expand...

Dave
Jan has suggested "Safe Mode" and I agree, well worth a try. But firstly make
sure there are no pending print jobs in the printer queue. You could also use a
registry cleaner and see if that helps, CCleaner is free and good, select
"Issues" and clean the registry, keep doing that until no issues are found.
Tony
MS MVP Printing/Imaging
 
I've tried using CCleaner and using Safe Mode, but no luck. Have now
cross-posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt and
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt. Weird!

Dave
 
Dave Rado said:
I've tried using CCleaner and using Safe Mode, but no luck. Have now
cross-posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt and
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt. Weird!
Click to expand...
Dave, this may be a shot in the dark, but have you gone into documents and
setting for each of the users to rid your system of any files being loaded
or temp files?

Go to My Computer>click on C-drive icon to get to root directory> click on
documents and settings folder. Here you will see all user folders. At this
point you need to go to click on tools>folder options>view> and select to
show hidden files and folders. At this point the hidden files you need to
get to in each of the user files will be accessible. Go back one level and
select the first user folder. Go into the now un-hidden application folder
and look for references to the printer application software and delete as
necessary. Caution, problems will occur if you get the wrong folders and
another program attempts to load later.

Now go back one level, and go into local settings. Here you will find a
application data folder, just delete references as before. At this point I
usually go back one level and go into the temp file folders and delete the
contents to do a bit of housekeeping.

You will need to do this for each user. To tidy up, revisit tools and check
the hide hidden files and folders. Run CCleaner again and you will find
many references to printer in the registry show up for deletion. I had to
resort to this method to rid my system of Norton Antivirus that would not go
away even with their special delete application. Try it and keep us posted.
 
Hi Jimmy
Dave, this may be a shot in the dark, but have you gone into documents and
setting for each of the users to rid your system of any files being loaded
or temp files?

Go to My Computer>click on C-drive icon to get to root directory> click on
documents and settings folder. Here you will see all user folders. At this
point you need to go to click on tools>folder options>view> and select to
show hidden files and folders. At this point the hidden files you need to
get to in each of the user files will be accessible. Go back one level and
select the first user folder. Go into the now un-hidden application folder
and look for references to the printer application software and delete as
necessary. Caution, problems will occur if you get the wrong folders and
another program attempts to load later.

Now go back one level, and go into local settings. Here you will find a
application data folder, just delete references as before. At this point I
usually go back one level and go into the temp file folders and delete the
contents to do a bit of housekeeping.

You will need to do this for each user. To tidy up, revisit tools and check
the hide hidden files and folders. Run CCleaner again and you will find
many references to printer in the registry show up for deletion. I had to
resort to this method to rid my system of Norton Antivirus that would not go
away even with their special delete application. Try it and keep us posted.
Click to expand...

Unless I've misunderstood what you mean, simply doing a Ctrl+F in
C:\Documents and Settings\ for "Epson" should find anything that should
be deleted, but it finds nothing (other than some web urls in my
Favourites folder).

Thanks anyway.

Dave
 
Dave Rado said:
Hi Jimmy


Unless I've misunderstood what you mean, simply doing a Ctrl+F in
C:\Documents and Settings\ for "Epson" should find anything that should
be deleted, but it finds nothing (other than some web urls in my
Favourites folder).
Click to expand...

No, I have no idea where Ctrl+F came from in my suggestion. Basically you
will be deleting files Windows stores for fast loading of devices and
programs. You can go into safe mode if you wish, but you will need to go
into the hidden files for each user and manually delete the files/folders
for the printer ( usually you will find a Epson folder). There are usually
a couple of places these can be found for each user, plus possible the
Administrator user login. After the references are deleted, CCleaner can
easily delete registry entries as you have removed Epson printer vestiges in
Windows. It is easy to find unless you have another Epson device on your
system, so you may have to enter into the Epson folder and delete only the
printer related items. Since you are unable to reinstall and remove the
drivers via normal means, this indicates something is corrupt. As such it
will be a bit more difficult to clear up.
 
I am trying to uninstall an Epson printer driver for the 830U. In
"Control Panel/Add/Remove Programs" there is an item called "Epson
Printer Software". If I click "Change/Remove" for it, a dialog pops up
with a "Printer Model" tab, and with "Epson Stylus Photo 830U Series"
highlighted. If I click "OK", it says "Are you sure you want to delete
the printer "Epson Stylus Photo 830U Series"? If I click "Yes", it
comes up with a messagebox saying "Uninstall complete". But it hasn't
uninstalled anything! "Epson Printer Software" is still in the
"Add/Remove Programs" list, and if I click "Change/Remove" again, the
same dialog pops up with a "Printer Model" tab, and with "Epson Stylus
Photo 830U Series" still highlighted. How can I get rid of it?

Dave
Click to expand...

Some useful information about fixing printer driver conflicts here.

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm



--

http://www.FenrirOnline.com

Computer services, custom metal etching,
arts, crafts, and much more.
 
You may have to do it manually, which means contacting Epson and asking
for a complete list of all the file names of all the entries that have
to be removed. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon with some printer
drivers.

Art
 
You may have to do it manually, which means contacting Epson and asking
for a complete list of all the file names of all the entries that have
to be removed. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon with some printer
drivers.
Click to expand...

Another option: Go to Start/settings/printers. From the File menu, go to
Server Properties. Go to the Drivers tab. Remove any unneeded drivers.
 
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