How can I get rid of printer drivers I accidentally installed on OS X?

Question

I was trying to connect to a Canon ImageRunner at one of my client's workplace, and an HP printer at a different client's worklplace. Most times my Mac can find and install printers with no problem. However, these were rather new network printers and I suppose it was not in the included drivers.

I installed both the HP and the Canon printer drivers on different days, using the install package. I then deleted the applications that they installed from the Applications folder by dragging them to the trash and emptying it.

Looks like the software might have had an uninstaller program but I am not even sure which one I installed. Oops.

Now when software update pops up it wants me to update Lexmark and HP Printer software.

I really want these two to go away - I really don't want to install updates for them. How can I make them go away?

For extra points, how can I remove other remnants of these? Perhaps by checking the launchd config?

Answer 1

You'll have to play with pkg-util I think. For example,

$ pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i hp
com.adobe.pkg.FlashPlayer
com.apple.pkg.HP_CHorse
com.apple.pkg.HP_CHorseD
com.apple.pkg.HP_CHorseI
com.apple.pkg.HP_CHorseIL
com.apple.pkg.HP_CHorseL
com.apple.pkg.HP_Chuckwalla
com.apple.pkg.HP_Cmd2HP
com.apple.pkg.HP_DesignjetIO
com.apple.pkg.HP_DMF
com.apple.pkg.HP_Fax2
com.apple.pkg.HP_ImageEnhancement
com.apple.pkg.HP_Inkjet8
com.apple.pkg.HP_Inkjet9
com.apple.pkg.HP_PDE
com.apple.pkg.HP_Pdf2Pdf1
com.apple.pkg.HP_Pdf2Pdf2
com.apple.pkg.HP_PS
com.apple.pkg.HP_Scan
com.apple.pkg.HP_Scan3
com.apple.pkg.HP_SmartX

You can see the files owned by a package like this:

~ $ pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg.HP_DesignjetIO
System
System/Library
System/Library/Extensions
System/Library/Extensions/hp_designjet_series.kext
System/Library/Extensions/hp_designjet_series.kext/Contents
System/Library/Extensions/hp_designjet_series.kext/Contents/Info.plist
System/Library/Extensions/hp_designjet_series.kext/Contents/version.plist
~ $ pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg.HP_PDE
Library
Library/Printers
Library/Printers/hp
Library/Printers/hp/PDEs
Library/Printers/hp/PDEs/PDE.plugin
Library/Printers/hp/PDEs/PDE.plugin/Contents
Library/Printers/hp/PDEs/PDE.plugin/Contents/Info.plist
[...]

So do pkgutil --forget on the packages you don't want, and presumably that will stop updates (untested). You can also delete the files it lists, carefully (untested).