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Fix “The requested resource is in use” When Deleting Printer Port

Fix “The requested resource is in use” When Deleting Printer Port

By Mitch Bartlett 9 Comments

When you attempt to remove a printer port that is no longer in use, you may receive an error message saying “The requested resource is in use”. Try these steps to solve this issue.

The requested resources is in use error

Stopping the Print Spooler

To successfully remove the port and avoid this error, you will need to stop and restart the Print Spooler service. These steps assume you have already removed all printers that used the port you are removing.

  1. Hold down the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Windows Run dialog.
  2. Type “services.msc“, then click “OK“.
  3. Highlight the “Print Spooler” service, then click the “Stop” button.
    Stop Print Spooler
  4. Delete the printer port you wish to remove.

Removing Printer Ports

I prefer to remove the port from the registry as you may no longer have the printer port listed under “Devices and Printers” when you stop the Print Spooler. Use these steps.

  1. Hold the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run window.
  2. Type “regedit” then press “Enter” to bring up the Registry Editor.
  3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Print \ Monitors \ Standard TCP/IP Port \ Ports
  4. Right-click and delete the folder with the name of the port you wish to remove.
  5. Also check under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Print \ Monitors \ LPR Port to remove any ports.

After these steps are performed, you can start the Print Spooler up again.

These steps can be used on Windows 10, Server 2016, and Server 2012

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Filed Under: Windows Tagged With: Windows 10, Windows 2016

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. jerry says

    September 22, 2021 at 5:47 pm

    this helped me. Thank you

  2. DL Maffett says

    March 13, 2021 at 4:12 pm

    this friggin rocks! after a long time and lost of frustration I finally got rid of all those unneeded and duplicate ports!

  3. Lawrence Candilas says

    January 15, 2021 at 1:54 pm

    This comes up on a Google Search, but I think this information is outdated. When you do this on recent builds of Windows 10, it simply tells you the print spooler is not running and won’t delete the port.

  4. Ming says

    December 30, 2020 at 11:46 pm

    Thanks so much. It helped a lot!

  5. michael DeMatties says

    November 3, 2020 at 8:33 am

    This messed up my print server. I hate deleting stuff in the reg.

  6. Marcin says

    October 13, 2020 at 2:15 pm

    Oh yes! THAT helped a lot. Thank You!

  7. Richard Pritchard says

    October 11, 2019 at 1:54 am

    Great stuff. Could not find this elsewhere and printer just would not work until older drivers and ports removed and reinstalled

  8. Annie says

    July 24, 2019 at 7:22 pm

    Absolutely great stuff! Much appreciated.

  9. Gary Rakebrandt says

    January 3, 2019 at 1:19 pm

    This worked great. Thank you for having a helpful web page.

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