Lexmark X83 and Windows 2000 problems

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

I have Windows 2000 with XP 4.

It is a fresh install. Prior to that I had Windows 98 SE.

Under 98 SE the printer seemingly stopped working after we installed
drivers for a USB Cable modem.

That seemingly made no sense but I decided it was time to upgrade the
computer anyway. So we added a USB 2.0 card and Additional RAM (now @
384 MB) and upgraded to Windows 20000. It was a fresh install. I first
reformatted the hard drive.

So anyway, I figure since the printer is a few years old, why not
download the latest drivers and use them. So I did and it turns out it
works beautifully, as long as you are on the administrator account. No
go from any user accounts.

So after much tinkering, I decided to uninstall the drivers and install
from the original CD.

From what I gathered the CD only had Win 95, 98 and NT4 Drivers. I'm
guessing it used the NT 4 drivers. So it appears all is fine and all is
working.

Then in in a fit of stupidity I installed this "patch" for Windows 2000
(had I been thinking I'd have realized it was for the Windows 2000
drivers which I was no longer using) and it basically brought everything
to a halt. I could no longer print and got lots of error messages.

So then I tried uninstalling the drivers and halfway though the
uninstall process the uninstall program crashed, leaving bits and pieces
of the software/drivers on the hard drive.

So then I hack the registry, trying to delete every reference to the
printer I can (a few would not delete). Then I delete all the files by
hand. Including those in the drivers sub folder of winnt\system32

All but two .dll files would delete. I tried unregistering them and they
wouldn't unregister.

So after that, I rebooted and reinstalled from the CD. The problem
remains. I keep getting error messages and the printer won't work.

So it's basically impossible to fully uninstall this mess and I don't
know what to do at this point.

Any suggestions?