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How to change the printer's driver on Universal Print connector?

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Sometimes there is a need to replace a printer's driver on Universal Print connector with another driver. This may be done if:

  • The existing driver is causing compatibility issues with Universal Print.
  • There is an alternate driver which enables more print options for the printer via Universal Print.

Note

For information on the print options that a particular print driver enables for Universal Print, please work directly with the print driver provider.

Steps to change the printer driver on connector:

On the machine hosting the Universal Print connector:

If the new driver is significantly different from the previous driver (e.g. moving from a model-specific driver to a Universal driver, from a V3 to a V4 driver, or moving to a new major version), the safest way to change drivers is to create a new printer and swap it with the old printer:

  1. Download and install the new print driver
  2. Add a new printer that points to the same port as the existing printer but uses the new driver. This can be done by selecting Add manually when installing the printer.
  3. Use the connector to register the new printer and then share it from Azure Portal
  4. Add the new printer share on a Windows client and print a test page to ensure that the new driver is working and has the expected print options
  5. Follow these instructions to swap the new printer share with the old one
  6. Print a test page from a client that already had the old printer share installed to ensure it is still working and has the expected print options

If you are doing a minor driver update, then changing the existing printer's driver is sufficient:

  1. Download and install the new print driver
  2. Go to Settings->Devices->Printers & scanners
  3. Select the printer for which you need to update the driver.
  4. Click on Manage
  5. Click on Printer Properties and go to Advanced tab
  6. Select the driver (or install the New Driver if not already installed)
  7. Click Apply and close the dialog
  8. Print a test page to ensure the driver is working fine
  9. Open Task Manager and select Services tab.
  10. Find the Print Connector service. Stop and restart the service. This will ensures that the printer's capabilities are updated from the new print driver and loaded in Universal Print.

On Windows clients where corresponding Universal Print printer was already installed:

All supported Windows client versions should automatically reflect the driver change. However, if you are on an older, unsupported version of Windows (Version 1903, also known as 19H1 or build 18362) users must uninstall and re-install the Universal Print printer. This is required for the Windows client to download the new printer capabilities from Universal Print.