# Is there a way to hide printers in Windows?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 20, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704 "2012-06-20T00:49:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704/1 "2012-06-20T00:49:27Z")

</div>

I have a TON of printers that appear in my computers’ print dialog boxes, some of them with very specialized functions. I need those printers to be available for those functions, but I don’t ever use them from print dialog boxes.

As a specific example of what I mean: QuickBooks requires me to have the following printers installed: “Microsoft XPS Document Writer” “Amyuni Document Converter” “QuickBooks PDF Converter” and “QuickBooks PDF Converter 2.0” And yet, I can’t print to these from outside QuickBooks without an error. (Well, I guess with the exception of XPS, but I have no use for XPS outside of the QuickBooks dependency on it). If I uninstall these printers, QuickBooks has problems exporting PDFs, sending e-mails, and completing reconciliations so I have to keep them active.

Another example: Quicken needs the “Quicken PDF Printer”

I’m tired of scrolling through a long list of printers in all of my other applications and would love to hide these application-specific ones without removing them entirely.

Some random information you might need:

- I’m using a combination of Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.
- We do have the default printer set, but we still need to change printers regularly.
- I have the 2007-2012 versions of QuickBooks running, and need to continue supporting old versions.
- The answer is not that Intuit is evil. I already know that. 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704/2 "2012-06-20T00:55:17Z")

</div>

I don’t think you can and personally I wouldn’t even try. Quickbooks gets _really_ pissy if you start messing with it’s printers. If you try something, it’ll be three days downloading drivers, reading random internet posts and changing settings before you can email an invoice again. I’ve been there, it’s not fun.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704/3 "2012-06-20T06:19:32Z")

</div>

> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> I don’t think you can and personally I wouldn’t even try. Quickbooks gets _really_ pissy if you start messing with it’s printers. If you try something, it’ll be three days downloading drivers, reading random internet posts and changing settings before you can email an invoice again. I’ve been there, it’s not fun.

I’m not too worried about that part. I’ve been there done that, both for myself and for clients.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704/4 "2012-06-20T06:40:31Z")

</div>

I think the sneaky trick might be to rename the printers you actually use, starting with a . or \* or something so they all appear at the top.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-hide-printers-in-windows/625704/5 "2012-06-20T16:45:19Z")

</div>

> [@AaronX](#):
>
> I think the sneaky trick might be to rename the printers you actually use, starting with a . or \* or something so they all appear at the top.

Yeah… if hiding a printer isn’t supported by Windows, then I suppose this is the best option. Either that, or rename the ones I don’t use with a z or something to put them at the end of the list.