jasonheyd.

“Printer cannot be removed. Make sure that you have typed the name correctly, and that the printer is connected to the network.”

this error’s been the bane of my existence for weeks. 

the printer no longer exists, so connecting it to the network is… unlikely. 

no help from Microsoft’s support pages, knowledge base, etc. (not a huge surprise), and nothing helpful on Google. 

editing the registry?  futile.

in the end, it appears that you can’t delete an offline network printer from Control Panel –> Hardware and Sound –> Printers.  instead, you have to start Vista’s Print Management app, which is part of the Microsoft Management Console.  from there, you can remove the printer and, following a reboot, the associated port automagically disappears.

computing made easy, courtesy of Microsoft.

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