The right way to safe your printer with Home windows 11’s new Protected Print mode

The printer producers’ proprietary drivers have been a thorn in Microsoft’s facet for a while now. In line with the corporate, 9 % of Home windows safety issues are attributable to the printing system.

In 2021, for instance, a safety vulnerability within the printer spooler was discovered that allowed attackers to realize system rights. System rights are one stage above administrator rights and permit the set up of arbitrary purposes and nearly limitless modifications to Home windows settings.

As new patches needed to be developed for a number of months to shut the hole, it was lastly given the identify “Print Nightmare”.

In Home windows 11 24H2, Microsoft has now built-in the Home windows Protected Print mode, or WPP for brief, which was introduced a while in the past. It replaces the producer’s drivers on many printers and on the identical time prevents the set up of latest printer drivers.

That is supposed to forestall malicious code from getting into the pc through the drivers. It additionally ensures that the frequent duties of the printer spooler are now not executed with system rights, however solely with consumer rights. On this means, Microsoft is closing the safety hole that led to the Print Nightmare.

WPP is predicated on the Web Print Protocol (IPP) and makes use of a standardized IPPClass driver. This works with all printers and multifunction units which have been licensed by the Cell Printing Alliance (Mopria). Mopria was initially based by Canon, HP, Samsung and Xerox and in the present day all main printer producers are members of the Alliance.

To keep away from compatibility issues, WPP just isn’t energetic by default in Home windows, however should be switched on by the consumer. You may lookup whether or not your printer or MFC is suitable at

Whether it is, you may simply change to WPP: Open “Settings” within the Begin menu and go to “Bluetooth and units” -> “Printers and scanners”. Scroll right down to “Home windows Protected Print Mode” and click on on “Arrange”. After you’ve got answered the 2 safety questions with “Sure, proceed”, Home windows will do the remaining.

Home windows then takes management of the print jobs with its WPP driver. If the producer’s authentic driver offered prolonged capabilities for printing, it’s possible you’ll discover corresponding instruments for the WPP drivers within the Microsoft Retailer.

If you wish to deactivate WPP once more, simply click on on “Take away” underneath “Bluetooth and units”->”Printers and scanners”-> “Home windows-protected print mode” and make sure with “Sure”. Simply remember that you should then reinstall the producer’s previous drivers.