I'm trying to deploy shared printers across the organization with as little user involvement as possible. Type 3 drivers have made this difficult because printer installation often requires administrator approval unless RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators is disabled.
I've tested several approaches. Print Management GPO deployment can run asynchronously, but removing previously deployed printers has been unreliable and may require administrator access. Deploying printers through User Configuration > Control Panel Settings > Printers removes cleanly, but it delays logon because our environment requires Group Policy to finish applying before the desktop appears. A logon batch script runs asynchronously, but using PrintUIEntry causes a pop-up for every printer. Computer-based printer deployment moves the delay to startup and applies printers to everyone using the computer, but it cannot handle different printer assignments for different users.
I've also considered pre-staging trusted drivers with an administrative tool or scheduled task, then deploying the printer connections afterward. We cannot currently use PowerShell in the required user context, and many of our printer models do not support Type 4 drivers.
What approach has worked well for deploying Type 3 printers silently without creating a noticeable logon delay? I'm especially interested in solutions using native Windows tools, while keeping the PrintNightmare-related security risks under control.
4 Answers
A dedicated print-management product can make this nearly invisible to users by handling driver staging, assignments, removals, and reporting centrally. It is often effective when printer-related support tickets are expensive, although licensing may be difficult to justify. If you stay with native tools, the closest equivalent is usually driver pre-staging plus targeted printer policies and a cleanup script.
Pre-stage the printer drivers before deploying the connections. An RMM or another administrative deployment mechanism can install the trusted drivers, and then Group Policy can add printers targeted by site, department, or security group. That usually makes the later user-side connection much faster. You can also script removal of obsolete printer connections when assignments change.
If the organization eventually moves further into cloud management, Universal Print with Intune policies can handle much of the assignment and installation workflow. It still depends on printer or connector support, and the experience is not equally good on every platform, but it avoids many traditional print-server deployment problems.
That is probably where we’ll end up, but we are not far enough along with our cloud migration to use it yet.
Be careful about solving the prompt by setting RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators to 0 globally. That weakens an important mitigation. The safer native approach is to use a hardened, trusted print server, restrict Point and Print to that server, and pre-stage only approved drivers with administrative rights. Type 4 drivers are preferable from a security standpoint, but if the hardware does not support them, carefully controlled Type 3 deployment is the practical compromise.
We’ve had good results with approved universal Type 3 drivers, the elevation policy limited to our print server, and processing performed on the clients. Type 4 drivers often have fewer features and can shift more processing to the server.
Our models unfortunately do not support Type 4. My current workaround is to temporarily deploy the required policy to trusted computers, install the drivers, then restore the restrictive setting. I’m still looking for a cleaner option.
That sounds worth testing. I still see delays during the first logon when the connection itself is created, but pre-staging should hopefully reduce the driver-installation portion substantially.