Issues removing printers in Windows 10

Question

I'm having strange problems removing printers in Windows 10.

In Devices and Printers, when you right click a printer, the 'Remove Device' option has a shield, indicating that it needs admin rights to execute.

On some machines, the prompt for admin credentials doesn't appear, so the printer can't be removed.

On some machines, the prompt does appear, but the printer still doesn't remove - or at least not immediately.

In some instances, the process works as expected!

The printers were largely deployed using group policy.

Is there a way of forcing the printers to remove? The friendlier the better!

Looking at shell:printersfolder, not all the printers visible in Devices and Printers are shown. This is the same when looking in Print Management on the machine.

Answer 1

I have made steps to resolving this using the steps here -

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1691224-network-printer-keeps-reinstalling-after-removal-on-one-of-our-rds-hosts

Basically, clear out the references to print servers in the registry key -

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider\Servers

Other printers have disappeared and have not returned.

There was an issue where there seemed to be multiple instances of the printer under all its options, 'See what's printing', 'Printing Preferences' etc, but removing it via right click and allowing it to re-add via GP seemed to resolve.