SOLVED: Printers Automatically Reinstall After Deletion or ERROR 0X00000709

This was a mess.  I had installed printers on my Windows 10 lab PC so I could build an image with the common drivers already installed, but I forgot to remove the “print devices” (AKA Printers) from that profile before snapping it with SYSPREP.   At this point every PC I deployed had a large list of printers magically reinstall.

You may also notice that you cannot uninstall printers and that if you try to set a printer as default, you see ERROR 0X00000709

After 4 hours of digging I found a registry entry was causing the problem and the fix was relatively simple:

1. Log into the PC as an Administrator
   1. RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR does not error out but also does not seem to work for this solution
   2. Make sure no other user is logged in at the same time
2. Launch a COMMAND PROMPT AS ADMIN and enter
   REG DELETE “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers” /F
3. Then you need to bring up your PRINTERS AND DEVICES and manually delete each printer
4. Then launch SERVICES and restart the PRINT SPOOLER

At this point you should be able to install printers you want.