Answer:
Ghost printers are printers that continue to appear in Windows although they have not been used or installed on your system in a long time, which may have been years. It may be the printer will not remove from your computer through normal means (either automatically as usually occurs when disconnected, or the printer driver (program that sends to the printer) does not remove).
The following are the steps to remove ghost printers without driving people crazy that they will not leave.
1. Type CMD in the search box beside Start and press enter.
2. Command Prompt will appear at top on left, on the right click Run as Administrator
3. Now type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 and press enter.
4. Nothing will appear to happen after doing enter, just back to command prompt.
5. Now type devmgmt.msc and press Enter, and you are now in Device Manager Console.
6. In the View Menu (it is located in row at top) click Show Hidden devices.
7. Find the printer that is a ghost and right click it and choose to uninstall it.
8. Your ghost printer should now be gone
9. Close all open windows
This should get rid of your ghost printer and help keep your computer running efficiently.
Send me your questions about computers to me at the paper or to my e-mail dwight@dwightwatt.com and tell me you read this in this paper. I will pick a question to answer each week.
Dwight Watt does computer work for businesses, individuals and organizations and teaches about computers at a technical college in northwest Georgia. His webpage is www.dwightwatt.com His e-mail address is dwight@dwightwatt.com.
