Disappearing printers? Ghostly printers with weird names multiply then fade away? Weird popups about secure print mode? Welcome to Nightmare on Print Street, directed by and starring Microsoft.
Printer Poltergeists
For the last 12 months, Windows users have been plagued by printer poltergeists particularly after Patch Tuesdays. What is the source?
We have to dive deep into Windows programming history for part of the problem. Even before Windows Vista was a gleam in Bill Gate’s eye, the component of Windows that make the operating system send print requests to the printer, the Print Spooler, runs with special system administrator permissions. A very tempting target for hackers who can get administrator rights on a computer from abusing the print spooler.
Microsoft has been labouring to fix this security for many years. The nightmare is the way they are doing this. Unlike ghosts, this process is not transparent to regular users or even IT.
Multiplying Printers with dodgy drivers
One way Microsoft started tackling printers was to release their own Internet Printing Protocol drivers and adding those, without informing, let alone asking the end user, that this driver was being applied to their printer. More recently I see Microsoft adding their IPP driver printer and deleting or disabling the original printer installation.
Microsoft is also removing network HostName information from the printer and replacing it with MAC address information. What does this mean for end user? Instead seeing the name Envelope printer (purpose) or BrotherByLauren (location information), when the user looks for a printer on Windows they are seeing unhelpful information like with just model names and sometimes a part of the network mac address of the printer. As most users don’t find know what a mac address or how to find it on their printer, and most don’t know the model number, Microsoft has removed the information they need to find their printer. See example below unfriendly names. The Lexmark and one of those Brothers is named on the printer device, in the DNS and Microsoft has blocked that information.
Note in that picture Microsoft multiplied the Lexmark.
See below how network information in Windows does not show hard coded HostName information that would help a user find the printer. Weirdly for the Lexmark is shows Envelope in brackets but not other printer hostname information.
Microsoft makes these printer changes with no warning to users or IT. I have also found Microsoft adding printers that were removed over 12 months ago. I switched my own office printer over a year ago. Carefully uninstalled all the old printer software and installed the new printer. Yet every few months the old printer shows up in my list of printer plus the IPP driver of the new one. So I have three printers in the list instead of one. Just imagine an office with 20 printers, every user now has to sort through potentially 60 printers to find the one they want. Total nightmare.
Paper Mishandling
When Microsoft adds these IPP printers, they also mishandle the paper handling settings. The IPP drivers do not have the full range of the authorized manufacturer printer installation with paper handling features.
See the IPP driver paper handling options below:
Now look at the paper handling with the original manufacturer package:
Excel Printing Nightmare
Excel printing is a now a special nightmare. Last month one client couldn’t print an Excel selection because of the IPP driver version of the printer, a Konica Minolta. So I deleted the IPP driver printer for the clients.
This month Excel freezes printing anything on the old driver. Like the whole program freezes, not just the printing. I had to add back the evil IPP driver version of the Konica and finally the client can print again in Excel.
According to all of Microsoft’s documentation, you should be able to use the manufacturer print driver (they call everything not their driver “legacy”, I call it a “fully tested and working driver”) instead of their IPP driver.
Nightmare on Print Street
Microsoft inflicts this nightmare on Windows folks in the name of Secure Print Mode. You might have seen this in the Printer Settings while you were hunting for your usual printer.
I recommend you turn off both Secure Print Mode and Allow Windows to Manage My Printers. Even with those turned off, you can get the nightmare, just one you can wake up from more quickly.
This is not computer users monkeying with their printer settings, I have verified this. This is not faulty or insecure manufacturer printer drivers. This nightmare is caused by Microsoft surreptitiously changing printer settings. You have to turn off Windows updates on the computer to stop the nightmare happening again.
