A story like this… Windows 7 used for at least several years, many different devices, lots of drivers for printers, scanners, various I/O devices, and even custom drivers…
And finally, driver problems started to appear.
In theory, to uninstall a device that is no longer connected to the computer, it is enough to select “Show hidden devices” in Device Manager, right-click, remove it, and tick one checkbox… in theory.
In practice, only non-Plug and Play devices appear. To show the others as well, you have to go back to the Windows XP days and use the method described there, setting the variable:
devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
As described in the WinXP note: