Windows 10 - Null Printer driver solution

[wackman]

Hello,

First off, forgive me that I'm jnot just taking a response to an existing post. The few I found were either from before Win10 or were already resolved by replacing their printer or reinstalling drivers from scratch. I thought a post off by itself where people could find it would be a better idea.

So, I had the "null printer driver" error in Windows 10 Windows Update a few months ago and I fixed it. I got the error again just now and couldn't remember what I did last time, but I just figured it out. I wanted to share this for anyone else having this error.

The fix is shockingly easy. It doesn't involve reinstalling drivers or clean uninstalling and reinstalling anything. The problem happens because a "phantom" device gets partially installed and WU keeps wanting to install a null driver.

1. Go into Device Manager (I like to go into windows explorer, right click on "This PC" and choose Manage).

2. At the top, under View, cl;ick on "Hidden Devices"

3. Go into each group that has to do with printing. EX: Printers, Print Queues, etc.

4. Find the print device that you are sure doesn't belong. If you do happen to delete the wrong printer device, the worst case scenario is that you'll just have to reinstall your drivers anyway. Last time I *think* my bogus device actually said "null printer." This time, my printer was listed as a totally different printer, so I'll have to redo it.

5. If you removed the right invalid device, Windows will no longer try to install a null driver.

Voila! Issue should be fixed. Now that I think of it, maybe the problem came back for me because it was the wrong driver.