Printer Shows 10 Copies in Devices & Printers

You open Devices and Printers, and there they are: 5, 8, maybe 12 copies of the exact same printer. Each one says "Ready" but you only own one printer. This usually happens after Windows does a big feature update – like going from 22H2 to 23H2 – or after you install a new printer driver without uninstalling the old one first.

The real trigger is Windows Update silently re-installing a printer driver that already exists. Windows sees the new driver as separate from the old one, so it adds a new port and a new entry. Do this 4 times, and you've got 5 identical printers. The root cause is that the printer driver isn't properly flagged as "already installed" in the driver store, or the spooler service has old printer data stuck in its queue.

Stop the bleeding – remove all duplicates manually

1. Open Devices and Printers. Press the Windows key, type "printers", and click Printers & Scanners (Windows 11) or Devices and Printers (Windows 10). If you're on Windows 11, you'll need to click "Printers & scanners" first. After that, click "Print server properties" at the top right.
2. Check the printer driver list. In the Print Server Properties window, click the Drivers tab. You should see your printer model listed once. If you see it listed multiple times with different driver versions (like v.6.1.7600.1 and v.6.1.7600.2), that's the problem. Each driver version is treated as a separate device.
3. Remove all but the last driver version. Select the oldest one (check the Driver Version column) and click Remove. When it asks if you want to remove the driver package, click Yes. Do this for every duplicate version except the newest one.
4. Now delete the printer ports. Switch to the Ports tab in the same window. Look for ports named like USB001, USB002, USB003 – sometimes the duplicates get their own port. Any port that has a number higher than 1 and isn't assigned to a working printer needs to go. Select it, click Delete Port. If the port is in use by a printer you still see listed, skip it for now.
5. Go back to the Printers list. In Devices and Printers, right-click each duplicate printer entry and select Remove device. Start with the ones that show any warning icon. You can only remove one at a time – wait for it to disappear before you remove the next.
6. Restart the Print Spooler service. Press Windows + R, type services.msc, press Enter. Scroll down to Print Spooler. Right-click it, choose Stop. Wait 10 seconds. Then right-click again, choose Start. This clears out any leftover junk in the spooler's memory.

Stop new duplicates from coming back

The manual removal fixes the mess right now. But if you don't fix the driver store, duplicates will come back on the next Windows Update. Here's how to lock it down:

1. Delete the old driver package from the driver store. Open Command Prompt as Administrator. Type pnputil /enum-drivers and press Enter. That gives you a long list of every driver on the machine. Look for the printer driver by name – it'll say something like "Canon Generic PCL6 Driver" – and note the Published Name (it looks like oem42.inf).
2. Remove the old driver package. Type pnputil /delete-driver oem42.inf (replace oem42.inf with the actual name from step 1). Press Enter. This deletes the installer files, so Windows can't use them again. You only want to keep the newest published name – delete everything older than that.
3. If your printer is network-based, check the port assignment. Open Command Prompt as Administrator again. Type net stop spooler. Then net start spooler. Then type wmic printer get name,portname. This shows what port each printer uses. If you see the same IP address or USB name on multiple entries, that's why duplicates keep appearing – Windows is adding a new printer to the same port. You need to delete all but one of those entries from the registry.

Registry cleanup (only if nothing else works)

If duplicates still show up after all of that, the data is stuck in the registry. This is the nuclear option – be careful.

1. Press Windows + R, type regedit, press Enter.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers.
3. In the left pane, you'll see a folder for each printer entry. Right-click any folder that doesn't match your actual printer's name and choose Delete. Do not delete the folder for the real printer you want to keep.
4. Close regedit and restart the Print Spooler again (same steps as before).

If it still fails

If duplicates come back after a week, the problem is likely that you have a third-party printer management tool installed (like HP Smart or Canon Quick Menu). These apps sometimes install their own driver versions when they update. Uninstall that app from Programs and Features, then reinstall only the base driver from the manufacturer's website. Skip the extra software – you don't need it, and it's causing the duplicates.

Also, check if you have a network printer set up through the printer's own IP address AND also through a print server or Windows' WSD (Web Services for Devices). That mismatch will cause duplicates every time. Stick to one method: either use a static IP and TCP/IP port, or use WSD, but not both.