• Cannot Open Output File
• Extraction Failed

In most cases you cannot send a PDF file to the printer command because the printer command cannot understand PDF. Set the noPrint option to 'y' or use the '-np' (no print) command line option if you do not want Pasta to send the PDF file to the printer. Use the outFile option to define the destination on the middle tier for the output file. Delete the file. You'll use the Command Prompt to do so: Type del /f filename.dll, replacing 'filename.dll' with the name of the file. The /f flag tells Windows to delete the file even if it's read-only. Press Y to confirm if prompted. If the HP installation does not start automatically, find the file (hpsetup.exe) on your computer. For HP LaserJet Pro P1102, P1606dn, and P1566 printers: Open File Explorer, navigate to the C: drive, and then find the LJP1000-1560P1600FullSolution folder. Welcome to the HP® Official website to setup your printer. Get started with your new printer by downloading the software. You will be able to connect the printer to a network and print across devices. For example W32X86 folder has generally a “3” folder and a “PCC” folder(it can have more folders). Go into all folders there and delete everything. During this process some files may refuse to be deleted and you can hit try again but it will still not delete and that is okay just move on. Restart the computer.

If you have ever needed to manage printers on a computer remotely (Install, Delete, Modify, Clear a Print Queue) then this article should be helpful.

I am assuming that your are on a domain, have administrative permissions and have remote management enabled for your computers.

5 Steps total

Step 1: Open Print Management as Admin

Click start and search for Print Management. Right Click on Print Manager and Run as Admin. Use credentials with Administrative rights on the remote machine

Step 2: Connect to the Remote Print Server

Right Click on Print Servers and select Add / Remove Servers

Step 3: Add Print Servers

The remote print server is simply the PC or Server you wish to manage.
Type the name of the PC (you can add multiple) and click Add to List.

Repeat until all the devices you want to work with are in the list then Click OK

Step 4: Expand the Print Server and open the Printers Item

Once added to the list you can expand the PC Print Server. Then click Printers and you will see the list of all install printers on that device along with the Queue and several other details

Step 5: Manage as Normal

Cannot Open Output File

You will now be able to do everything you would normally do when physically logged into the remote PC and using Devices and Printers locally. Including installing and deleting printers, clearing print queues and editing printer properties and defaults.

Keep in mind that this may not be as fast as sitting directly in front of the computer as you are working remotely. Especially when working across WAN Links.

But it sure beats fighting traffic and users for access to a busy PC

Managing printers on remote devices is no harder than managing printers on the local device you are sitting in front off. This feature in windows can be a huge time saver especially when dealing with many remote sites where you can't always kick the user off to fix a printing issue!

15 Comments

• Cayenne
  Joshua King Mar 9, 2016 at 01:57pm

  Thanks for the guide. Used it and it works for me, much appreciated!

• Anaheim
  SkyHigh Mar 9, 2016 at 03:03pm

  Print Manager is great for a small number of servers. However, if you are trying to manage installed printers on your company PCs, then, the more you add, the slower it gets!!!
  Bring back 'view remote printers' in file explorer from Windows 7!
  Good simple guide though, thanks.

• Thai Pepper
  Jason1121 Mar 9, 2016 at 03:14pm

  Good info to have. Print Manager is without a doubt very handy. However I do miss being able to just browse to a remote computer:

  computername

  And then dig down into 'Printers and Faxes' like we could with 2003 and XP.

• Cayenne
  mikevandenboom Mar 9, 2016 at 04:50pm

  I am overjoyed....This is the first time I ever saw this.

• Cayenne
  MarkH3326 Mar 9, 2016 at 06:38pm

  This may or may not be off-topic a wee bit but I did a bunch of research last year to create an automated .BAT batch program as I roll out our company's printers to users' computers. I thought I would share it here in case it is of use to you all. I made it generic and deleted all the printers except one, to keep it simple. Here you go:

  @Echo ----------------------------------------------------------

  REM *** Install Printers .BAT program
  REM *** by Mark H - 201503.26

  REM *** -r = the IP address of the printer
  REM *** -h = the IP address of the printer
  REM *** /m = the label of the printer driver to install found in the .INF file
  REM *** /f = the full filepath and filename of the .INF file
  REM *** /b = The description label which will show up in 'DEVICES and PRINTERS'

  REM *** Line 1 installs the port
  REM *** Line 2 installs the printer driver
  REM *** Line 3 creates the actual printer in the 'DEVICES and PRINTERS' system

  @Echo on

  @Echo ----------------------------------------------------------

  @Echo *** (1) Install HQ - Xerox 7775 printer @ 192.168.20.9

  cscript %WINDIR%System32Printing_Admin_Scriptsen-USPrnport.vbs -a -r IP_192.168.20.9 -h 192.168.20.9 -o raw -n 9100

  rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ia /m 'Xerox WorkCentre 7775 PS' /f 'C:MASTERSPrintersXerox_7775_PS_x64x2DLEXP.inf'

  rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /if /b 'HQ - Xerox 7775' /f 'C:MASTERSPrintersXerox_7775_PS_x64x2DLEXP.inf' /r 'IP_192.168.20.9' /m 'Xerox WorkCentre 7775 PS'

  @Echo ----------------------------------------------------------

• Poblano
  ed.palmer.54 Mar 10, 2016 at 02:43pm

  MarkH3326: I do this a bit differently:

  REM Create port
  Cscript %WINDIR%System32Printing_Admin_Scriptsen-USPrnport.vbs -a -r 10.170.84.34 -h 10.170.84.34 -o raw

  REM Install driver package
  Cscript %WINDIR%System32Printing_Admin_Scriptsen-USPrndrvr.vbs -a -m 'Lexmark MX810 Series XL' -i 'C:Lexmark MX810LMADRP40.inf'

  REM Create printer using driver and port
  Cscript %WINDIR%System32Printing_Admin_Scriptsen-USPrnmngr.vbs -a -p 'Lexmark MX811dtfe' -m 'Lexmark MX810 Series XL' -r 10.170.84.34

  REM Print test page
  Cscript %WINDIR%System32Printing_Admin_Scriptsen-USPrnqctl.vbs -e -p 'Lexmark MX811dtfe'

• Poblano
  Marek3971 May 5, 2016 at 10:57am

  Thanks so much. I didn't realize how easy I can install printers for users

• Poblano
  joshuacrussell Oct 3, 2017 at 03:24pm

  Perhaps I'm missing something, but for whatever reason, I cannot run Print Management as Admin. I am a domain admin, my username is in the local machine's administrators group, my account is an admin account, I have full control permissions and I am set as owner for printmanagement.msc, but I still only get the 'run as...' and a permissions error if I click it.
  Any suggestions?

• Mace
  molan Oct 4, 2017 at 01:10am

  Sounds like you have UAC disabled, make sure it is enabled

• Poblano
  joshuacrussell Oct 6, 2017 at 08:26pm

  Nope - UAC is enabled. To muddy the waters, I put mmc.exe on my desktop, ran it as admin, then added the Print Management snap-in.
  I added computers from the network as Print Servers, and under printers, I get 'no items to show.'
  The computers have the red down arrow icon - something clearly isn't configured properly. Thoughts?

• Mace
  molan Oct 7, 2017 at 01:36am

  Start a question thread and reference this how to, you will get better help than going back and forth in the comments section

• Cayenne
  ChrisN315 Feb 23, 2018 at 03:53pm

  That's handy right there! Saves me a lot of travel.

  Thanks!

• Datil
  Peter (Action1) Sep 20, 2019 at 05:48pm

  Also, try our solution Action1 to remotely add a printer, remotely remove a printer or other print management operations on remote computers. It works similarly to Print Manager or remotely installing a printer using PsExec or other command line tools, but it is centrally managed and monitored from the cloud. https://www.action1.com/p/Free-Add-or-Remove-Network-Printer-119.html

• Pimiento
  David4299 Dec 9, 2019 at 07:55pm

  This allows me to see local printers (on the remote PC) only. I can't see any network printers.

• Jalapeno
  brainjjohns Jan 27, 2020 at 07:31pm

  Wow! That was easy.

  I have heard of this before but didn't realize it would be this simple. I was expecting to have to set up a server specifically to do this. Thank you.

Summary :

If you can't delete a file or folder in Windows 10, check the 3 ways in this post for how to delete files that cannot be deleted in your Windows 10 computer. Detailed step-by-step guide is provided. To recover mistakenly deleted files or lost data from Windows 10 computer or other storage devices, MiniTool offers the professional free data recovery software.

Can’t Delete a File or Folder in Windows 10?

Sometimes you may face this problem: you can't delete a file or folder in Windows 10 no matter how many times you conduct the delete operation. How to delete files that cannot be deleted? How to force delete a file in Windows 10 computer?

Generally if a file is being opened or used by another application or program, Windows 10 computer will mark the file in a locked state, and you can’t delete, edit or move this file. When you are not using this tile, then it will be unlocked. But sometimes the file unlock process may be not successfully completed, which may cause the file delete operation can’t be accomplished, along with a warning showing that the file is opened by another program.

If you insist to delete the file or want to force to delete it, you may try these three methods in this post to unlock and delete the file.

How to Force Delete a File/Folder That Cannot Be Deleted Windows 10

How to delete a file/folder that that won't delete in Windows 10? Normally you can take the basic steps below at first.

• Close all apps and programs on your Windows 10 computer, and try to delete the file again to see if it can be deleted.
• Close File Explorer. You can click Start -> Type Task Manager and choose Task Manager to open it -> Find Windows Explorer and right-click on it and choose End task to close it.
• Restarting Windows 10 can sometimes fix many issues. You can try to reboot your Windows 10 computer and delete the file again to see if it can be deleted successfully.
• You can also conduct a virus scan to see if there is a virus in your Windows 10 computer.
• Check the file property. Make sure the file or drive is not read-only. Related: how to remove write protection on SD card, USB, disk drive, etc.

If all the five measures above don’t make any difference, then you can continue to try the three ways below to force delete files or folders that can't be deleted.

Method 1. Force Delete Files/Folders Using CMD

Can't delete file? You can try to use Command Prompt to delete files or folders that cannot be deleted in Windows 10.

How to force delete a file with 'DEL' command:

Step 1. You can press Windows + R keys on the keyboard, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Windows Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 2. Then input the command line and hit Enter to force delete the file in Windows 10 with CMD. The command line is like this: del c:usersalisadesktoptest.txt. Replace “c:usersalisadesktoptest.txt” with the path of the target file. And do remember to include the file extension in the command.

To check the path of the file, you can right-click the file and click Properties.

Force delete folder in Windows 10 with '“RMDIR /S /Q” command:

To delete a folder that won't delete in Windows 10, you can type rmdir /s /q E:test command in Command Prompt window. Replace 'E:test' with the path of the folder.

Learn how to create and delete a file or folder with cmd. Use Windows Command Prompt to create and delete files and directories.

Method 2. Use Safe Mode to Unlock and Delete Files

To delete a file that can't be deleted, you can also try to start Windows 10 in safe mode to unlock and delete the file.

Step 1. Click Start -> Settings -> Update & Security -> Recovery -> Restart now (under Advanced Startup), to enter into Windows recovery environment.

Step 2. Click Troubleshoot -> Advanced options -> Startup Settings -> Restart.

Step 3. In Startup Settings window, you can press F4 or F5 to boot into safe mode in Windows 10.

Step 4. Delete the file or folder in Windows 10 Safe Mode.

Step 5. Restart Windows 10 and your computer will auto exit Safe Mode.

Learn how to open a file/folder in Command Prompt (cmd) on Windows 10. Step-by-step guide is included.

Method 3. Use Shift + Delete to Force Delete File/Folder

You can select the target file or folder and press Shift + Delete keyboard shortcut to delete the file/folder permanently. This file deletion method won't pass the Recycle Bin.

Note: Need to mention that this post is not talking about deleting Windows system files. Windows system files are usually protected against deletion. Deleting system files can cause issues of your Windows 10 computer OS. So please do not delete system files randomly.

If the file is corrupted or your Windows 10 computer reports that it can’t find the file, you may take some measures to conduct the disk repair process to see if it can fix this error and fix corrupted system files.

How to Recover Mistakenly Deleted Files from Windows 10 Computer

As for how to force delete a file/folder that cannot be deleted in Windows 10, hope the above solutions in this post help.

In case sometimes you may mistakenly deleted a needed file on your Windows 10 computer, here we also attach an easy file undelete method, namely, use the professional data recovery software to easily recover deleted files from your Windows 10 computer.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is an easy data recovery program for Windows. It allows you to easily recover deleted/lost files from Windows 10 computer, external hard drive, SSD, USB flash drive (pen drive data recovery), SD card, etc. in 2 simple steps. You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover data under various data loss situations.

Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your Windows computer and follow the simple operation below to recover mistakenly deleted files.

Step 1. Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery, and choose This PC from the left pane. Then you can choose the specific partition in the right window where your deleted files located. Click Scan button.

Extraction Failed

If you want to scan and recover specific type of files, you can click Settings to choose the file type before you click Scan button.

Step 2. After the scan process is completed, you can check the scan result to find your mistakenly deleted files, check them and click Save button to set a new destination path to store them.

Easy 3 steps to fast recover my files/data for free with best free file recovery software. 23 FAQs for how to recover my files and lost data are included.

How to Force Delete a File FAQ