We recently upgraded our team to Windows 11 in our small nonprofit, and now, whenever someone checks the printers section, it displays every printer on the network instead of just the ones we have set up. I've heard this might be linked to the new Unified print dialog feature. This issue also occurs when trying to print something and checking the dropdown menu. Our devices are on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2, and we don't use a print server or share these printers. We haven't implemented GPO-controlled printers in this setup yet. Here's an image for reference: [Printer Image](https://imgur.com/a/GUhNHVt)
3 Answers
If you're working with a flat VLAN structure, printers typically broadcast their presence by sending out packets frequently. To reduce this, you either need to configure the printers to disable their mDNS settings or set them up on a specific printer or IoT VLAN.
You can try modifying a registry setting to stop the network metadata from populating. Just run this in PowerShell:
```powershell
if (!(Get-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionDevice Metadata" -Name "PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionDevice Metadata" -Name "PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork" -Value 1 | Out-Null -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionDevice Metadata" -Name "PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork" -Value 1 | Out-Null -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
```
This should help limit what gets displayed.
Consider placing your printers on a dedicated printer VLAN. This can help manage network traffic better and prevent all those unnecessary advertisements from printers on the network.
You could also just turn off WSD on the printers to cut down on this issue.