Q. I had an Epson printer but it passed away some time ago. When I open "Devices and Printers," the icon is still there, even after I right click it and delete it. It disappears until I open that screen the next time and there it is. How do I get rid of it permanently?
A. In my experience, when a printer gives up the ghost we usually find out when we're trying to print something. We'll send the print job and nothing happens. This leads us to troubleshoot the problem which leads us to the conclusion that the printer has died.
Now that you are trying to do some PC house cleaning you find that you can't get rid of the printer from the Devices and Printers Control Panel.
The reason you can't get rid of it is simple. Windows is still trying to print that document that failed when your printer bit the dust.
What this means to you is that you have to cancel any failed print jobs before you can delete the printer from your PC.
To do this just find the printer and double click it. This will show you any pending jobs which you can then go through and delete.
Once you do that you should have no trouble removing the final ghost of your dead printer.
