Windows 11 WFH user has all printers disappear when not on the domain

Question

We have a Windows 11 Pro user that works from home 3 days per week, and 2 days in the office. She was working from home on Thursday and Friday. There were no issues when in the office Tuesday and Wednesday where she is connected via ethernet to the domain.

Beginning last Thursday, her printers were all absent from windows. ALL PRINTERS, local and networked: Including CutePDF, Adobe PDF, Microsoft print to PDF, and One Note print driver.

We tried restarting the spooler service, tried adding a new printer, every attempt ended in a spinning wheel and a message that the application is not responding.

We had her bring the laptop in today and confirmed the issue. The printers are simply gone. BUT if you connect to the Domain via ethernet, it will populate all the network printers from the print server and all the locally installed printers. To test the theory of it being related to the domain, I removed the ethernet and connected the WIFI to the Guest WIFI which is segmented off the domain. I tell a simple text document to print and it once again simply spins and states that notepad is not responding. I then connect the ethernet and once the network card gets an IP and connects to the network the print job immediately opens the choose your printer menu. This is replicable in all installed programs, word, excel, adobe acrobat, notepad, etc...

Since the problem was not present on Monday 5/1/2023 I tried rolling back the windows updates that were installed on 5/2/2023 but could not remove Servicing Stack 10.0.22000.1811. Problem is still present. I've tried removing the computer from the domain and adding it back. I've tried a slew of other forum suggested repairs but none are exactly like what we are dealing with. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for your question and for reaching out with your question today.

Is it possible that your WiFi is segregated from the network where the printers are available? When you connect to the WiFi, is the IP address in the same range/subnet as when connected using Ethernet? I suggest that the network connection when on WiFi is simply not able to access the network where the printers are located. Do other devices work when connected to the same WiFi? If so, you may need to investigate if the laptop is connecting to the WiFi correctly and if not, consider a rebuild.

If the reply was helpful, please don’t forget to upvote or accept as answer.

Answer 2

When a Windows 11 user working from home (WFH) experiences disappearing printers while not connected to the domain, it is likely due to the printers being configured via Group Policy. These printers are typically only available when the device is connected to the corporate network. To resolve this, users can:

Add Printers Manually: Configure printers manually on the home network.

VPN Connection: Use a VPN to connect to the corporate network, making the domain-based printers available.

IT Support: Consult IT support to potentially reconfigure Group Policy settings or implement a hybrid solution allowing access to printers off the domain.

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