Uninstall HP printer then reinstall different one

I’d like some advice from those who know more about wrangling with HP printers than I do.

I tried the usual Add/Remove Programs and I was left with a HP folder in C:/Program Files, a C:/temp/HP_Webrelease and a C:/Moved HP files. These were both HP files from the first installed HP Photosmart 2570 (which had been a successful installation) and failed installation files from HP PSC 1315 that I tried to install after the 2570 would no longer feed paper. I read through a bunch of older posts and it appears the 1315 installation failed because I had not gotten everything related to the 2570 off. Plus there’s a whole screen of Hewlett-Packard and HP registry entries under HKLM/Software when I run regedit.

I ran Revo Uninstaller (since I had seen it recommended here so many times) and it detected just HP Software Update and removed it. Did not touch any of those files I mentioned earlier or the registry entries. I then manually uninstalled all the HP files and ran CCleaner.

I then found the HP All-in-One Uninstall Utility and ran it through all 4 levels. It seemed to be getting rid of some things but I still have most of the registry entries I mentioned. Wondering if I’d gotten enough off to be able to reinstall the 1315, I looked through some more posts and found this thread: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=150734. I also have registry entries like HKLM/System/ControlSet002/Enum/USB and HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Enum/USB.

So what do I do next? Manually remove all those HP-related registry entries?

 

Thanks for your reply, Halo.

I ran CCleaner Registry after I manually removed the files and it did remove several Missing Shared DLLs and a few Installer Reference Issues that were HP items. I also ran Revo Uninstaller Junk Files Cleaner but it found only .tmp files, not HP.

I ran CCleaner Registry after I ran the HP Uninstall Utility and it removed several more Misssing Shared DLLs that went with Digital Imaging/bin files and a few Missing MUI Reference entries. When I looked at the Registry though, I still have a full screen and a half of Hewlett-Packard and HP entries, so it looks as if little has been taken off.

I just ran CCleaner Registry again and there is nothing new there.

No printer-related items are showing in Device Mgr.

There was a color folder with 9 files, 6 of them HP. There was also a w32x86 folder containing two folders: a 3 folder (with several .dll and 5 .exe files) and a hpphotosmart_2570_sedc4a folder (with many .dll and 5 .exe files). At first I tried to delete all—but I got an error message upon trying to delete the color folder: “Cannot delete color: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.” I then realized I was being a bit hasty, and that not all the files belonged to HP. So I restored the 3 in color that did not look related to HP and left 20 non-HP files in folder 3. I deleted everything in hpphotosmart_2570_sedc4a folder.

While I was in that spool folder, I noticed that there were 3 other folders besides drivers. PRINTERS folder is empty, XPSEP folder has 6 files but none appears to be HP-related. The prtprocs folder has a w32x86 folder with 3 files and one of them is a HP dll. Should I delete that one dll too?

I deleted these subkeys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3\HP Photosmart 2570 series
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3\Microsoft Shared Fax Driver
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3\Microsoft XPS Document Writer

I then ran CCleaner and CCleaner Registry. Just 6 Active XCOM Issues were there to remove. I rebooted and ran CCleaner again and there were no new registry items.

I still have all the HKLM\Software entries. How do I go about backing them up? I’ve never used the Export function here before. Where do I export them to?