Question : HP 940c printer install fails and also will not remove from the Add/Remove list

I concede that I made some mistakes here BUT need help getting out of this mess. I believe that the ONLY WAY AN EE EXPERT CAN HELP ME HERE IS TO PROVIDE A LINK TO A **FORCED UNINSTALL** PROGRAM FOR ALL HP PRINTERS OR JUST THE 940C.  I mean a link to the HP website. As an example both Symantec (Norton) and Mcafee provide such forced uninstall links for on their web-sites (different kind of SW but same idea). Of course if you have a different idea that will work, then I am all ears !!!!

I fix PCs for a living and this got screwed up BECAUSE I advised customer over the phone to avoid a 2 hour round trip (probably unpaid, don't ask) drive. And I could not see what could possibly go wrong. BIG MISTAKE !!

Problem: HP940c printer (attached to PC with usb cable) does not work.  Fact: If a new Samsung printer is installed onto the PC that Samsung printer works so the basic Windows Printing part of the OS is working and is fine. OS is Win XP Home SP 2.

#1 I told customer to delete all 940c icons in Control Panel>Printers. In fact she left at least one and maybe two (one left was a 940c network printer via Windows printer sharing and possibly the local 940c too, but I am not sure about the latter and obviously the latter one matters).

OK I told her (without knowing that there were still 940c's in Control Panel>Printers) to put in the printer install CD and proceed. It got part way thru the install (some bar moved left to right) and then asked her to connect the printer usb cable.

AT THAT POINT I (ON PHONE) realized I had forgot to have her remove the 940c from the Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs list before inserting the printer install CD. (If I had been there in person, this omission never would have occured). I told her to kill the printer install window (Task Manager/End task was need for this) and then Remove the 940c from the A/R list. She removed it (a progress bar moved from 0 all the way to 100%, PLEASE NOTE THAT, and no error messages came up), it said the PC needed to be rebooted from a button that the Remove procedure offered, she clicked it, the PC rebooted

NOW THE TROUBLE STARTS... I had her go back to the A/R list after reboot to make sure the 940c was gone AND IT WAS NOT. I began to get sick.....

She checked Control Panel>Printers to make sure no 940cs were left (there were, see my comments above) and I HAD HER DELETE THE TWO THAT WERE THERE. The fact that a local 940c was there could mean that it got created thru the PARTIAL install from the CD
OR
it could mean she never deleted it to begin with (which would obviosly matter). THERE IS NO WAY TO TELL NOW.

OK, I thought the 940cs still in  Cntrl Pnal>Printers could have caused the A/R list removal to fail so I had her do the A/R list removal again (of the 940c printer). Again the bar went 100% and no errors, she reboots and the 940c is STILL IN THE A/R LIST. I am beginning to feel even sicker....

As a last resort I tell her to do the CD install again in hopes it will succeed even though some parts of the 940c are still on the pc. It moves along after she connects the usb cable and THEN
BLUE SCREEN WITH NO TEXT COVERS ENTIRE SCREEN, PC IS PARTLY HUNG . As there is no text, I cannot say if this is the Blus Screen of Death (plus I was not there). Using task manager (still came up so the PC was not completely hung) I had her restart (which worked).

OK, now I must do the long drive to her house and get this to work.

EE, experts what do I do?? It appears to me that interrupting the printer install AND THEN doing the A/R list removal caused the entire problem here. Plus maybe she did not delete the local printer in Control Panel> Printer first BUT she may only have left the network printer driver WHICH WOULD REALLY NOT RELATE TO THIS AT ALL. (i.e the partial install may have got far enough to recreate the driver icon).

i.e If the A/R list removal was done ***BEFORE**  the CD install (this alone would remove the Control Panel>printer icon) then I dobut that you would be reading this post.

*****One exception to all this is the fact that the printer did not work to begin with (it did work two weeks ago) suggests that we did not start in a NEUTRAL state to begin with and some problem other than wrong-order-of-events is at work here******

So, EE HP Printer Experts, WHAT DO I DO NOW TO GET THE 940C TO WORK AGAIN??  After reading the above, I think you can see why a forced uninstall procedure on the HP website would come in mighty handy at this point !!

But your provided DETAILED STEP BY STEP solution (i.e delete these folders, now delete these named registry entries, now delete these named files, and these steps will totally remove the printer) would also work as long as you know what you are doing here.

Another useful thing would be if you ever saw a blue screen appear in the middle of an HP printer install AND SOLVED THAT PROBLEM and later got the printer to work, PLEASE TELL ME HOW YOU DID THAT.

Regards,
   Mike

Answer : HP 940c printer install fails and also will not remove from the Add/Remove list

I couldn't find an uninstaller for that printer.  However, it does appear that XP drivers are not included on CD that shipped with printer.

The first thing I'd suggest is downloading and installing the XP driver.  If you're lucky, that will fix the problem.

Otherwise, a brute force uninstall may be required.  That's removing all files and folders you can find that are related to printer and then running a registry cleaner (I like CCleaner) to remove orphaned registry entries.  Here are generic HP printer driver removal instructions.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00016441&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&product=59129&dlc=en&lang=en

KCTS is better at the command line and scripting than I am, so give his command a try.  I think it removes entries from Control Panel.