When you uninstall a printer, the print driver is NOT removed from your disk.
If you suspect that a printing problem is the result of an old or corrupt print driver, use the following procedure to remove and reinstall it:
01. In Windows XP (NT 5.1), you can remove print drivers by choosing to delete the print driver on the Printers and Faxes / Drivers tab.
02. In Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) and Windows NT 4.0, use the Printers folder to to remove the printer.
03. In Windows NT 3.5x, use Print Manager to remove the printer.
04. Open a CMD prompt and type: net stop spooler.
05. Use the Registry Editor to navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-x\<printer driver>
where Version-1 is for Windows NT 3.51 drivers
Version-2 is for Windows NT 4.0 drivers
Version-3 is Windows 2000+ drivers
and <printer driver> is the name of the printer you are removing.06.
Record or export the values so you know the names of the files.
07. Select and delete the <printer driver> key.
08. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to %SystemRoot%\System32\Spool\Drivers\<platform>
where <platform> is Intel
MIPS
Alpha
PPC
and the sub-folder is: w32x86\0 : Intel Windows NT 3.1 printer drivers
w32x86\1 : Intel Windows NT 3.5x printer drivers
w32x86\2 : Intel Windows NT 4.0 printer drivers
w32x86\3 : Intel Windows 2000+ printer drivers
Win40\0 : Windows 95 printer drivers
and delete the driver files.
NOTE: You may wish to delete the printers unidriver files (Rasdd.dll, Pscript.dll, or Plotter.dll).
09. If you cannot delete the files or folder after stopping the spooler service, configure StartUp Type as Disabled and restart the computer. After you delete the objects, configure StartUp Type as Automatic.
10. Shutdown and restart your Windows NT x.xx computer.
11. Install the printer using the Printer folder for Windows NT 4.0+ and Print Manager for Windows NT 3.5x.
