I wish to have no default printer (i.e. choose manually each time)

I wish to have no default printer in Windows, and to choose the printer manually each time. (And I don't want Windows to automatically choose the last printer used, either.) At present I have a default printer identified, and the print menu for that is working as it should.

Is there a way, in the Registry, that I can make a setting to both have no printer identified as "default" and have Windows not automatically assume the last printer used as the one queued up in the menu? I wish to have no printer queued up in the print menu, and select from the drop-down list.

It seems what I want to do is unusual since I can't find anything about doing this on the Web. I'm using Win10-Pro x64 22H2 19045.4046.

1. Follow @dalchina's linked tutorial to disable W10's behavior from switching the Default Printer to the last one used.

2. Run this command as Admin, to clear the Default Printer preference.

Code:

reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows" /v Device /t REG_SZ /d "" /f

Whatever printer device is listed first in sort order (or sometimes last) will be highlighted.

Thanks to all. I guess Windows won't let me do what I want to do. But at least with the last suggestion (which I ran) my PDF printer always comes up, so I won't be inadvertently printing stuff to the wrong physical printer. (But I will have to close wait for the PDF to load and then close it, when I goof -- same as having that printer as default.) Guess I'm a square peg in a round hole on this one.