Universal Print - frequently asked questions (FAQ)

For organizations committed to the Microsoft 365 cloud, Universal Print is the modern, cloud-based print solution that provides robust and centralized print management capabilities and a straightforward end user experience, while eliminating the need to maintain traditional on-premises print servers, active directory, or install printer drivers. Universal Print is a multi-tenant print solution service hosted on Azure. For organizations that are committed to Microsoft 365 cloud, it replaces the Windows Server print server functionality.

1. It is fully cloud based: setup, configuration, management and troubleshooting
2. It works with new ‘UP ready’ printers, but provides a transition for existing printers
3. It offers a familiar Windows print experience for users (discover, install and print)
4. It enables extensibility for an ecosystem of managed print service providers

Universal Print allows IT departments to configure their organization's printers so that employees can print seamlessly from any device, and for organizations to lower the cost of printing, while supporting their business needs. Printer manufacturers, software providers, and service providers can build on the cloud service to deliver advanced functionality.

Universal Print is for customers who are moving to the cloud and need the ability to print using a cloud service, as Azure Active Directory joined devices are unable to discover printers on local print servers. Therefore, customers seek a solution from Microsoft to remove the need for on-premises print servers and gateways.

A Universal Print ready / compatible printer is a printer that has a Universal Print compatible firmware. Printer manufacturers are releasing new printers that are Universal Print ready. Printers currently in the market may become Universal Print ready with firmware updates. See the Universal Print web page to find out more about Universal Print ready printers and print solutions from our partners.

For Universal Print, Windows devices must be connected to Azure Active Directory. Hybrid joined devices will work too provided they are joined to Azure Active Directory. You can check if a device is joined to Azure Active Directory by launching command prompt and running the following command:

dsregcmd /status

Read License Universal Print for more details.

We have a connector for current printers that have no updated firmware. The connector is a small Windows application that can connect many printers to the Microsoft 365 cloud, and can run on any Windows PC on the network. Refer to Installing the Universal Print connector for more information.

Yes, the connector can run on a Windows Server. Windows Server 2016 or later is required. Refer to Installing the Universal Print connector for more information.

Yes, if the VM has network access to the printers on the organization's network.

No, the connector is only available for Windows 10 and Windows Server.

There is no enforced maximum. It depends on available resources on the connector PC. Please refer to the article about connector configuration for detailed guidance.

Connector needs to be connected to the same network as printers, available 24x7 and connected to internet. Connector is a solution to support your existing printers. As new printers that support Universal Print natively are launched, the connector won’t be required for those printers.

Universal Print is currently available in both GCC and GCC High. For more information, please see our Universal Print in Government documentation.

All the data in transit is encrypted using SSL (https) with TLS 1.2. In the cloud, print data is stored the Office storage partitioned for each customer - this is same storage used for mail, OneDrive etc.

Universal Print stores all print queues in Office data storage. This is the same storage that stores customer's Office 365 mailboxes and OneDrive files.

A job stays in the print queue for a few days. If job is not claimed at the printer within three days, it gets marked as aborted. Even after printing, a job may stay in Universal Print for a few more days (up to a total of 10 days).

Universal Print currently does not have these capabilities, but we are working on coming up with new features to address customer needs. Please file new ideas or vote for the existing ones at Universal Print Feature Requests

Azure AD users and groups are used for assigning access to printers.

None! There are no incoming requests to printers or connectors (all requests are outgoing). As long as Universal Print endpoints are not blocked, everything will work.

Note that using wildcards, e.g. "*.print.microsoft.com" and "*.applicationinsights.azure.com" may be preferable for firewall configuration for simplicity or in case new services or endpoints are deployed in future.

Commercial

• Print service = https://print.print.microsoft.com/
• Registration service = https://register.print.microsoft.com/
• Discovery service = https://discovery.print.microsoft.com/
• Notification service = https://notification.print.microsoft.com/
• Graph service = https://graph.print.microsoft.com/
• Microsoft Entra ID = https://login.microsoftonline.com/

GCC

GCC uses Commercial endpoints as well as the following:

• Print service = https://gcc-print.print.azure.us/
• Registration service = https://gcc-register.print.azure.us/
• Discovery service = https://gcc-discovery.print.azure.us/
• Notification service = https://gcc-notification.print.azure.us/
• Graph service = https://gcc-graph.print.azure.us/

GCC High

• Print service = https://print.print.azure.us/
• Registration service = https://register.print.azure.us/
• Discovery service = https://discovery.print.azure.us/
• Notification service = https://notification.print.azure.us/
• Graph service = https://graph.print.azure.us/
• Microsoft Entra ID = https://login.microsoftonline.us/

Connector

In addition to the relevant endpoints above, the Universal Print connector needs access to the following:

• Azure portal authentication endpoints
• Azure portal framework endpoints
• If your tenant is in Europe: https://northeurope-2.in.applicationinsights.azure.com/
• Or if your tenant is anywhere else: https://westus2-2.in.applicationinsights.azure.com/

Universal Print is available in GCC and GCC High. Please see here for more details.

Yes. With Universal Print, users can print to any printers within their organizations by just connecting to internet.

There is no need for VPN or being on same local network.

Universal Print offers multiple ways in which a location can be specified. You can use the Country, City, Building, Floor etc. Alternatively, we have built GPS based location proximity. If admin specifies the latitude and longitude of the printer in Universal Print portal, and same is available for the user, we will do the nearest match.

Yes. If the user has GPS location, and admin has specified printers' locations with latitude and longitude, then the printers can be found based on proximity.

Yes, the Universal Print section in administrative portal allows you to configure default printing preferences for each printer.

PowerShell is on our roadmap. Details will be shared soon. Tools can also use Graph API. To learn more, visit Universal Print cloud printing API overview.

Currently administrators have access to a basic set of reports that include print usage grouped by user or printer.

Universal Print has been validated to work within the same Azure AD tenant. To enable printing across tenants, you may create a new feature ask or vote for an existing one at Universal Print Feature Requests.

Some bulk capabilities already exist (like registering multiple printers at the same time on a single connector). We are working on PowerShell support which will enable writing scripts for bulk jobs. Additionally, we are considering bulk scenarios for UI improvements as well. For specific ideas we recommend you to create a new feature ask or vote for an existing one at Universal Print Feature Requests.

Yes, access control to the printer supports them.

Universal Print is a replacement for Hybrid Cloud Print. Universal Print addresses additional scenarios, and is much easier to set up and scalable.

For Windows device to work with Universal Print, HCP settings need to be cleaned up. Delete the following registry key to clean-up HCP settings:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\<SID>\EnterpriseCloudPrint

If Intune or any other MDM solution was used to deploy the HCP setting, then ensure that the corresponding policy is removed. Otherwise the HCP setting will be pushed again on the Windows device.

Please take a look at Service Level Agreements (SLA) for Online Services. Check the latest version of the SLA and look for "Universal Print" in the table of contents.

There is no driver pushed to the users' machines. Support to print to Universal Print is built into Windows.

Universal Print is based on PWG's IPP standard, and supports IPP PDLs. We are working through the list of those PDLs.

Universal Print printers connect to internet and spool jobs in cloud using the service hosted in Azure.

Currently all jobs are spooled in cloud and routed via Azure. For new feature ideas or to vote for the existing ones, please go to Universal Print Feature Requests.

No, user will not be able to print unless the device is connected to internet. Connector needs to be connected to the Universal Print service via internet as well to get the print jobs that are spooled in the cloud.

Universal Print provides limited support for label printers. Please see details in this article.

Universal Print currently supports page printers only. We made these printers the higher priority because they are more widespread and versatile.

Plotter printers are a totally different class of printers that require special handling of paper roll size definition and other plotter specific functionalities. We plan to investigate adding support for plotter printers in Universal Print. We currently have no projected date of when they will be supported.

If you still have a question that is unanswered, reach out to the Universal Print technical community

• The Universal Print connector: please see this article about the right number of printers to register from each connector.
• Per user printing limit: a single user can print a total of 1 GB every 15 minutes. If the total size of print jobs for a given user exceeds 1 GB in a 15-minute window, then subsequent print jobs during that window will fail. This is not affected by the number of copies (e.g., If a user sends a 1 MB print job of which they need 5 copies, the data size that counts towards the limit is still 1 MB).