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Can't remove printers previously deployed by Group Policy Printer Deployment

JRV 546 Reputation points
2023-04-28T20:22:02.22+00:00

Back in the good old days, before PrintNightmare patches in 4Q21, we pushed printers out by Group Policy Printer Deployment. (Clarifying: Not with Preferences, but with Policies, using the Print Management MSC.) At the site I'm working on now, they were all per-computer, but the same thing applies to per-user printers elsewhere.

PrintNightmare patches, as most admins know, thoroughly broke GPPD.

Now, all workstations have zombie printers hosted by now-decommissioned print servers, and we can't get rid of them. Even brand-new user profiles inherit them.

They are removed from the printer GPOs via Print Management MSC. But because the print CSE doesn't work anymore, neither does the printer removal.

PowerShell Get-Printer doesn't even list them.

Standard users can't remove them (and never could, which is by design). Admin users can remove them, but they return.

I'm guessing that resetting Windows would get rid of them, since there's no trace left of them in Policy. But that's pretty extreme.

There are dozens or maybe 100s of references to the old print servers in the Registry, but I'm hoping only 1 or 2 of them, or flags in the printer settings, actually need to be removed. I can probably come up with some PowerShell magic to get rid of all of them--if that will address it. But I'm hoping there's a simpler way.

Anyone know a surgical way to get rid of them?

Windows
Windows
A family of Microsoft operating systems that run across personal computers, tablets, laptops, phones, internet of things devices, self-contained mixed reality headsets, large collaboration screens, and other devices.
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Windows Server Printing
Windows Server Printing
Windows Server: A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.Printing: Printer centralized deployment and management, scan and fax resources management, and document services
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  1. Adam Burton 0 Reputation points
    2023-08-23T15:35:34.47+00:00

    Hi all

    I'm having a similar problems and I have thrown everything at it, I'm not sure what/if is working yet but below is what I am trying....

    Oh, one thing what has worked, 'fax' has been removed on all the computers I checked :)

    GPO with identical settings for both User and Computer:

    powershell script containing all the printer names and sharenames, e.g:

    Remove-Printer -Name "EPSON WF-C869R Series - Sales"

    Remove-Printer -Name "clientservices (WF-C869R Series)"

    Remove-Printer -Name "Fax"

    User's image

  2. Matt H 0 Reputation points
    2023-08-24T14:24:25.1866667+00:00

    Here is what I did:

    I look at which printers are there for a logged in user by running

    wmic printer get name

    Then I stop the print spooler (need to be elevated)

    net stop spooler

    Then I delete a couple registry entries per printer:

    REG DELETE "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Devices" /v "\\PRINTSERVER\Office Copier" /f

REG DELETE "HKCU\Printers\Connections\,,PRINTSERVER,Office Copier" /f

    Then I start the print spooler (need to be elevated)

    net start spooler

    Then I confirm that those printers are gone by using the above WMI command

  3. NF 0 Reputation points
    2024-05-06T16:48:24.84+00:00

    JRV, did you ever find an answer to this issue. I'm experiencing the same problem.

  4. Verbatim 0 Reputation points
    2024-10-01T17:29:32.79+00:00

    Use psexec to launch registry editor as local system user. Delete offending entries within HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SWD\PRINTENUM

    Persists through sign in / out, but does not persist through reboot.

    Source: https://serverfault.com/questions/604161/deleted-printers-keeps-coming-back-and-multiply

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