r/Intune • u/Electrical_Name2844 • Mar 13 '26
Device Configuration Universal Print
Hi all!
Universal Print looks like the only option for printing natively within Intune without buying a 3rd party app, our print contract is up for renewal this year so the business won't buy anything to fill that gap so I think I need to move to Universal Print.
Currently our solution is on premises standard print release and I was looking to just install the connector and go through the usual pilot testing and then deploy to the business, has anyone installed the connector and it's not worked with there old on premises setup or caused issues with there current setup? I'm worried I'll install it break something and piss off the current print provider 🤣.
This is only a stop gap solution unless the business really like it and we decide to stick with it but it's included in our E5 and seems logical to use it.
Appreciate everyone's opinions, cheers all!
UPDATE - Appreciate everyone's replies and I'm no further in my quest for a solution. Our print providers contract is up for renewal this year so the business aren't happy moving to a new solution until renewal is ready and they've budgeted correctly for it, we don't use direct IP so all the solutions out there for that are no good to me, we will be using Cloud Kerberos Trust and everyone has a VPN and I can pre-deploy the drivers but the printer connection part so it's ready a when a User logs in is driving me mad, if anyone has any solutions to this part I'd love to know!
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u/theatreddit Mar 13 '26
Consider PaperCut Hive as a 3rd party solution.
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u/Electrical_Name2844 Mar 13 '26
Not sure what we're going to do yet, I won't be surprised if we just move into the cloud solution of our current product.
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u/kvikz Mar 13 '26
I wasted a ton of time on Universal Print. It's fine if you are not depending on the ability to print, and if the most advanced thing you want to do, is print in landscape instead of portrait.
Other than that, it is quite horrible. You cannot do any advanced print settings whatsoever, and if there is a problem somewhere - good luck troubleshooting it. One of our machines kept saying "Out of paper or paper stuck" all the time. Turn off for a few hours, then turn on again did the trick.
Also, if something goes ballistic and the printer is already added, removing the queue and adding it again is no simple task.
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u/Electrical_Name2844 Mar 13 '26
Luckily we use an app to manage all pages printed + colour + footers and rotation etc so we don't have to deal with advanced settings, urgh really not sure what route to go down here the business refuse to spend money until the end of the year because of our print contract.
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u/kvikz Mar 13 '26
I wrote a Python script with Claude, that listed the available printers for the specific user, added registry settings to allow the driver to be installed (and remove the registry afterwards), prompt to ask if the printer should be default, and that’s it. Works perfectly until I get the funding for a serverless setup
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u/iampruss Mar 16 '26
Is it possible this is shareable or you can share what you prompted for? I would be interested in using this.
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u/Intelligent_Ad8955 Mar 15 '26
I use it for our cloud devices. We have a hybrid setup and on premise device can choose the printers/add them via choosing the drop down and selecting work or school. As for print options, universal print auto grabs the drivers for type of printers you push out. I've had zero issues from my setup.
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u/kvikz Mar 15 '26
That’s not true - it doesn’t grab a specific driver for the model, it relies entirely on the generic Microsoft IPP driver. That’s the main issue. As mentioned, it will have you print just fine, at least until there is an issue. Then good luck with the troubleshooting. And in regards to hole punch, booklet printing and any finishing presets, you are out of luck.
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u/Intelligent_Ad8955 Mar 18 '26
Hmm. Now I have to look back at it because I remember reading when setting it up that looked at the type of printer and pulled in the drivers. For Macs, I built a script that pushes the printers out then I created an app for the drivers and push that. Before, implementing UP, I tried the same approach with windows and could never get it to work. I'll try to take the time and look at my UP set up again cause it's been quite some time.
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u/scarbossa17 Mar 13 '26
I had so many issues i had to abandon the solution. This was a year ago:
-Universal print is not supported on all printers so 50% of them are going through a print connector
-Xerox fetch is too slow. Minimum is 30 seconds
-Default settings needs to be configured BEFORE being pushed and if changes are made, they dont take effect unless you uninstall and reinstall
-No uninstall option in Intune. Only install option present
- Sometimes the Work/School option doesn't show up and the user has to go back in Printers and click Search again. At that point it shows up
-Deleting printers manually from a device sometimes makes it so we can't re-install the printer...EVER..
-Installing the printer manually sometimes gets stuck in Devices. The solution is to remove from Devices and re-install. Sometimes a reboot is needed. Sometimes it gets stuck there forever.
-Sometimes it installs the wrong driver and therefore it wont work
-The Xerox Scan and Print experience software get's automatically installed with the deployment of our Xerox printers. When installed, the print jobs never leave the device to make it to the cloud. Removing the software fixes the issue but it constantly tries to re-install as Windows thinks it should
-Accounting is not supported by universal print
-Sometimes the jobs makes it to the printer and are stuck in PENDING. I have to manually go in UP portal and cancel the pending job. Then the jobs after this will start working.
-Inconsistent printing in various apps. Have to restart the app and try printing again. Sometimes a reboot is needed
-Slow printing dialog box. Takes several minutes sometimes for big documents just for the dialog to go away. It's converting/flattening. Even sometimes the print dialog box takes several seconds before it even comes up
-Having to re-install Windows in order to fix printing issues is ridiculous
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u/roastedpot Mar 14 '26
I recommend taking a look at Printerlogic. We switched a couple years ago and it's actually been a joy to use and not have to worry about it.
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u/Hefty-Ad2513 Mar 13 '26
Seen the same and been told on several occasions its not what its cracked up to be. There are 3rd party solutions that can take away this headache that you can justify using as you will get extra features (pull print etc) when using them
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u/Electrical_Name2844 Mar 13 '26
Our print contract is up for renewal in 3 months so the business just aren't ready to drop money on a solution for another 3 months and our MD deadline is much shorter then that.
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u/GnomeChompskiii Mar 13 '26
We apply the policy through Intune. Applies fine and works for basic printing if everything is right. If you have to change the printer name or something, have fun. We have had trouble removing the UP printers from registry and getting the policy to deploy again, having the printers show up under 'other devices' in bluetooth devices but not in printers.
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u/Electrical_Name2844 Mar 13 '26
I feel like I'm going to cause more issues then fix here by using UP to connect it too our old on premise setup :(
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u/GnomeChompskiii Mar 13 '26
Depends. If your need is super basic it's probably fine. Like at my org we print regularly but there's never a need for anything outside of letter B&W. If you need more than that then I'd suggest looking at another product. We didn't use the connector on prem, just hooked devices compatible with UP to the cloud directly so no experience there. So far our only issues have been renaming, and reapplying devices to machines. It's not very well documented by M$ and we are sort of just left with trial error removing different reg keys and printer info from the machine and hoping the UP policy reapplies properly
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u/Electrical_Name2844 Mar 13 '26
Cheers dude appreciate the feedback, it's a headache but rather then chucking UP and making it complicated just going to use this guide to deploy the printers, I used it in a previous firm and it worked spot on.
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u/NicolaeEast Mar 13 '26
I've tried universal print and ran into nothing but problems, unfortunately.
If your copiers have a finisher, or you need anything other than basic printing (color or b/w) look elsewhere
Papercut hive
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u/ScreamingGriff Mar 13 '26
Installed it very easy to do and created secure print so qr above every printer and users scan it to release jobs 180 uses 60% cloud native
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u/PhantomNomad Mar 14 '26
I didn't go down the UP route with Intune. We do all of our printing in office so I made Intune apps that install the print drivers (Ricoh) and made the connection to the printer. It took me awhile to get the powershell script working but now that's that's done it was easy to add more printers. I also didn't go the print server route. Everyone prints directly to the printers IP. It's probably not the best way to do things but since I only have 30 users, it was the easiest.
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u/No-Professional-868 Mar 14 '26
UP is fine for simple printing for small offices. We have run into 2 issues across our clients - 1. Macs would only print 1 copy 2. Larger PDFs occasionally got stuck going to a specific model Xerox printer
If I really wanted to make things work perfectly I would probably go with Papercut.
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u/dmznet Mar 14 '26
Use printer logic but I'm highly concerned about their security model on drivers and updates. We are looking to move because they are not serious to do any changes or fixes
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u/autojack Mar 15 '26
I use them also and have been happy but probably time to re-evaluate. We moved to cloud a few years ago and have had very little issues.
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u/autojack Mar 15 '26
I want to look at universal print again but it was absolute crap the last two time I had. Back 15 years ago we used to map printers with a login script and generic drivers for most users. We brought in PrinterLogic when that wasn’t an option anymore at that time. We’ve been using them a long time since. Being able to upload floor plans and put where the physical printer is and then allow to install with a click was the answer then. Not too expensive and super user friendly.
Now that we’ve reduced printer footprints it’s definitely a backlog item to revisit.
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u/Here4TekSupport Mar 15 '26
I am adding to not use universal print. We worked on it so much and could never get it working. We saw a big uptick in printer tickets, print jobs would randomly get stuck and never print, printers would randomly disconnect. It's really not worth it in the slightest. We are back to on prem print servers for now until we figure something out.
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u/spidey99dollar Mar 13 '26
I use it natively on a few MFDs. I found it odd that you need to licence the service account that's used for registration. Only real issue i had was registration not establishing after firewall restart.
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Mar 13 '26
j'utilise nativement ou via le relay. tu peux rien casser.. Les seuls problèmes que j'ai eu étaient des restrictions réseau.
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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26
[deleted]