How To Remove a Printer Driver in Windows 7 Home Premium

I installed a network printer with an incorrect driver and when I tried to replace it with the correct one on my Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) system, I found that it was quite impossible. I deleted the printer from the printer list and then tried to reinstall it; however, when it came to the part where it asks if I wanted to use the original driver or replace it with a new driver, no matter which option I chose, it would always use the original driver. Frustrating!!

I eventually realized that I needed to delete the driver, but I couldn’t find it. I checked the device manager, but there were no printers listed there. I also checked online and several sites told me to launch “Print Management”, but I could not find that option anywhere on any of my menus. I finally found some instructions that told me how to get to Print Management on a Windows 7 computer. (NOTE: This did not work for me, so skip this part and scroll down to see the final answer if you are on a Windows 7 Home Premium Machine.)

How to See Print Management on a Windows 7 Computer
(but not Windows 7 Home Premium!!!)

  • Right click on the Windows orb (that round thingy at the bottom left corner of your screen).
  • Select Properties.
  • Under “Start Menu”, choose “Customize”.
  • Look for the option “Administration Tools”. Yours is likely set to “do not display” right now. Change your selection to “Show under All Programs and Start Menu”.
  • Click OK. Click OK again to close the Properties box.
  • Click on the Windows orb again (left click this time) and look for “Administration Tools”. Click on it and look for “Print Management”

(I may not have the right names for everything above as I am working on a Japanese system and just translating what I am seeing on my Japanese system.)

HOWEVER, Print Management still did not show up as an option after I did that!! The reason is that Windows 7 Home Premium does not give you any way to access Print Management through menus. So, you have to do this instead.

How to See Print Management on a Windows 7 Home Premium Computer

  • Click on the Windows Orb.
  • Type cmd in the search box at the bottom of the menu.
  • You will see the option of cmd.exe appear at the top of the menu. Click it.
  • This will launch a window in which you can type direct commands into your computer.
  • Type the following after the “greater than” sign (>): printui /s /t2
  • This will magically open a Print Management screen.

From here you can delete the offensive driver and regain some of the sanity you lost through your previous attempts to get the printer to do what it was meant to do.