A few months ago, we published about how you can replace Microsoft PDF Printer in Windows 10 with a better third-party PDF printer. The process we described involves removal of the PDF printer device supplied by Microsoft through the Windows 10 settings. But there is a much more thorough way of getting rid of the Microsoft PDF printer – you can actually remove the respective feature from the Windows installation itself. This is done by disabling the Microsoft Print to PDF feature from the Windows optional features list in your copy of Windows 10 installation. Here is how:
- Press the hotkey Win + R to open the Run dialog. You can also right-click on the Start menu logo in the taskbar and then select Run from the menu that shows up.
- In the Run dialog, type OptionalFeatures.exe and press the Enter key.
- This will open the Windows Feature window that shows you a long list of various features included in Windows 10 that you can toggle on or off. Scroll down this list and de-select the feature labeled Microsoft Print to PDF from it.
- Click on the OK button to save the changes. The process of removing the Microsoft PDF printer from Windows 10 may take many more minutes and you have to patiently wait for the progress to complete.
After you have removed Microsoft PDF Printer from Windows 10, you can either install a third-party PDF printer like like CutePDF, PrimoPDF, doPDF, Bullzip PDF etc. These PDF printers offer many more features and are updated much more often that the one Microsoft Windows 10 comes with. But this is not necessary, you can easily do without any PDF printer installed on your Windows PC. Actually, office software suites like Libre Office or Microsoft Office now come with in-built PDF document saving capabilities and you do not need any PDF printer for them to work.