Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Uninstalling a printer

I'm about to install a new printer since my old has broken. I guess I could just add it, but I figure I'd do it the right way by uninstalling the old one first.

There's actually a proper way to do it according to PC Answers.

It's a three-step process.

1) remove software installed with the printer with add/remove from the control panel
2) delete the printer
3) delete the printer drivers

Actually there's a better way for step 1 with HP All-In-One printers (link found while googling "uninstall HP Director). Just click Uninstall from the HP section in the Start Menu.

And just to be safe, I'm going to back up the My Scan folder before uninstalling.

* * *

OK, I ran the uninstall. What it did was uninstall the printer and drivers. But HP ImageZone and HP Director are still there. The question is whether I should uninstall these before installing the new printer. I would imagine the install would recognize the software and update it if need be. So I won't.

[5/22] WTH, I'll uninstall Imagezone from the control panel. Hey it got rid of both ImageZone and HP Director. All that's left is HP Software Update. I'll uninstall that too from the control panel. OK, that worked. The only thing that's left in the start menu is HP Digital Imaging Monitor and HP Image Zone Fast Start. And those are now shortcuts to nowhere. And I just manually deleted those items from the Start Menu. OK ready to install.

No comments: