Phantom Hardware

Every time I boot up, my computer initiates the Install New Hardware wizard - for a printer. All my peripherals are installed, and having reinstalled the printer, it keeps happening. Every boot up. It's annoying. Any suggestions?

what happens when you follow the instructions through? does it keep on happening any way. also is there any new drivers available from the manufacturer. it may only be a printer but you never know.

I may be thinking of something else, but in the Wizard isn't there a checkbox saying something like, "ignore this device in the future" type of thing?

The New Hardware Wizard may detect the printer device after every restart of the computer

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298370/en-us

This, it turns out, is a frequently encountered problem and, having trawled through the forumz, I've found a variety of partial solutions.

So - for the benefit of anyone else who ends up treading this frustrating path, here's the solution.

If you are unable to delete your LPTENUM from the registry entry, even in safe mode, the key will need amending. Administrators, it seems, do not have permission to amend keys created during the PnP process.

So - right click, check 'permissions' and tick the 'grant full control' box.

Full details at http://forumz.tomshardware.com/sof [...] 21979.html

Thanks to all who helped me on the way to this info.