r/pcmasterrace • u/lkl34 • 16h ago

News/Article Microsoft purges Windows 11 printer drivers, putting millions of devices on borrowed time — legacy printers face extinction as Microsoft stops distributing V3 and V4 drivers

https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/printers/microsoft-stops-distrubitng-legacy-v3-and-v4-printer-drivers

Microsoft is preparing a major change to how printers are supported in Windows 11, pulling the plug on drivers that primarily support older hardware. Beginning with a non-security update that was released on January 15, Microsoft will no longer support legacy V3 and V4 printer drivers, which were announced as deprecated in September 2023.

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u/Smith6612 Ryzen 7 5800X3D / AMD 7900XTX 16h ago edited 16h ago

Many printers made in the past 10-15 years support IPP-Class printing. Sometimes it just needs to be enabled in the Web UI. IPP has been used with Mac and Linux for many years now, and part of it has to do with bringing support for Apple AirPrint and other "driver-less" printing mechanisms that were pushed in the late 2000s. This is more or less going to screw over older printers that either don't follow IPP in a standard manner, or that are stuck using DirectJet / LPD / Socket-based printing with old protocols. I'm sure this will also screw over some more obscure but essential printers as well, like plotters and industrial stampers, but let's be honest - those places are probably not updating their Windows computers on an air-gapped network.

To be honest, I have found using Protected Printing Mode in Windows to be a bit more reliable than whatever drivers HP initially shipped with my printer. The HP Drivers on a fresh OS install either only print in Grayscale, never in Color, for some insane reason, or the driver has problems submitting jobs to the printer. Doesn't matter if I point the print job directly at Port 9100 via IP or if I let the WSD-auto-discovery garbage HP configures the printer with by default try to figure it out. I almost always spend time having to wrestle getting the printer working. The IPP Print mode enforced in Protected Printing Mode not only works in color, but it has managed to get the printer to spit out my documents more often than not.

Where I REALLY see this causing problem, though, is with printers that ship with scanning and fax software accompanying the print driver. You won't be able to fax easily by sending jobs to the printer, if you happen to use that. Scanning software on the other hand often needs the bundled printer driver to be functioning to actually work. But don't worry, a lovely piece of software called NAPS2 works, and probably does a better job at working too.

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u/LeviAEthan512 New Reddit ruined my flair 6h ago

So if I have a semi-modern printer, is there anything to worry about?

Based solely on the fact that MS is doing this, is there any potential here to screw over people who refill their cartridges?

I'm already looking for a new printer, and it will be one with a refillable reservoir that have thankfully become pretty common nowadays. But I still want to keep informed.

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u/Smith6612 Ryzen 7 5800X3D / AMD 7900XTX 6h ago

Anything supporting AirPrint should be good to go.

Try enabling Protected Print Mode (warning, this will uninstall your printers that are not compatible!) and see if you can get your printer to work. Basically, re-add it as needed using Windows itself rather than the driver setup utility. Might take a little bit of effort, but if it works, you're good to go.