Can't remove Printer from Devices and Printers

Hey all,

Recently installed Win 7 Pro x64 and just trying to iron out some of the kinks. I had my printer installed and it was working fine but all of a sudden I couldn't get it out of "offline" mode. I read elsewhere to re-install the printer so I proceeded to remove the current one from Devices and Printers. After removal, the icon remained in there but was slightly transparent so I figured it would be gone after a reboot.

I then proceeded to attempt to re-install the printer in the same fashion as before. This is a printer I am connecting via wireless on my home network. I ran through the steps only this time I receive a message "The printer installation failed". So I reboot and when I return to Devices and Printers. I see the slightly transparent icon still there only this time there is a [00265e6483ef] after the name. I tried to remove this icon but nothing seemed to happen.

I have checked for any printers in the Print Management (in Administrative options) and also in Device Manager but found none. I've run CCleaner to clean out the registry and it found a bunch of errors which I fixed but still no luck getting the printer installed. I tried using Brother's driver removal tool which said it was successful, but again, not able to install the printer or remove the transparent icon from Devices and Printers. The printer model is Brother MFC-495CW.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Michael

TVeblen said:

First thing is to try and do a System Restore back to a point before you started making changes.

Then, before you remove the printer from Devices & Printers, turn the printer off (or disconnect the power), then remove the printer, then restart to see if it is actually gone.

A System Retore just to remove printers? Oh man, there's got to be an easier way than this. Is Microsoft planning a fix for this, I hope? This is embarrassingly bad. I'm trying to fix this issue for a client running Windows 7 Starter right now on a netbook. Keep removing them and they keep popping back up like printer zombies from the dead.

Thank god my main computer is Mac OS X. Does anyone have any other idea aside from a Restore??