No available printers - how do I register printers?

[arildg]

Hi, i am a bit stuck here and cannot figure out what i am missing.

I have :

- assigned the Universal Print to M365

- granted Universal print license to my administrator

- installed the Universal Print Connector (0.20.7380.21779) on Windows server 2016.

So;  how do i register printers? I have tried:

 - adding printers locally to the hosting Windows 2016 server.

- refreshing printers do not populate "Available printers" field in UPC-software.

I assume this is the way to do it:

- installing local printers on pc/server running Universal Print connector

. choose from available printers --> register and they will appear in Universal print portal

- or is Universal print connector supposed to find printes via network discovery?

Any pointers will be appreciated.

Br Arild

[#2]

@arildg 

Your assumption is correct.
You just add a printer to the server as normal (you don't have to enable sharing on the server itself).
Then start the Connector app, rescan printers, and select and register the new printer from there.
Then it will appear in the Azure Universal Print portal, and you can share it and assign it to users/groups.

[#3]

@arildg Thanks for trying out Universal Print.

The printer installed on the Windows Server machine (where the Connector is installed) may not be supported by Universal Print. Try the following steps:

* Refresh the list of printers in the print connector app

* Open up the event log (shortcut is Start -> Run -> eventvwr /c:microsoft-windows-printconnector )

* It should have enumerated over the printers locally installed and told you the reason why something was skipped. 

Depending on the answer, we can point you to support or perhaps clarify here why the printer was skipped.

[#4]

@keeron 

Hi, and thanks for you reply. I can see in eventviewer that Universal print connector as expected is skipping the default printers (Microsoft Print to PDF, XPS and fax).

I have added a couple other printers and they are all added via add printer and are shared printers on printservers in our datacenter (we have 300+ printers  (production and admin) and are using Canon Smartprint all administrative printers).

These printers are not in "skipped-printers-list" in eventviewer.

Does Universal Print support this setup?

Br Arild

[#5]

@arildg Thanks for the details,

I believe the Smart Print queues are not local connections on the machine where Connector is installed. Connector only support local print queues (i.e. installed via WSD, TCP, or USB port). 

What is the 'type', 'shared', and 'published' values if you run this in Powershell:

Get-Printer -name YOUR_PRINTER_NAME

If this is a local print queue and the Connector is still unable to show it, my suggestion is to get in touch with our support folks. Do you have a Microsoft support plan? You can report this issue (and the details mentioned here) through Help + support in the Azure Portal, Support for business, or Services Hub. 

[#6]

@keeron  - ok thats probably the issue here.

The printers I added are:

type=Connection

published=true

shared=true

portname= NUL:

thank you for your inputs - i'll do some more testing and raise a ticket with MS if needed (we have EA with support plan).

[#7]

@keeron ,

Hi Keeron, I would like to know what do you mean “Connector only support local print queues (i.e. installed via WSD, TCP, or USB port). ”? If I create an Azure VMs and I would like to print the documentation using the registered printers, do you think Universal Print is still able to do it? Thanks.

Best,

Alan

[#8]

Hi,
If universal connector application is running on a VM then we don't have any feasibility of connecting the printer locally to the machine to register with connector app, then the printer must be discovered over the network (both UP connector VM network and printer network must be same) using standard discovery protocol.

[#9]

@Akhil_Gopal Did anyone get the UP connector to work? I am facing the same issue. The connector is installed on a windows server with all pre-requisite met but the connector cannot find any printers on the network. We have tried both Global Administrator and Printer Administrator. Is there any MS documentation that states the printers must first be added to the server? Do we need to register the UP connector as an enterprise app in Azure?

Please suggest 

[#10]

We need to install the printer locally on the UP connector server then only the printer will show up on the available list of printers in the connector app. I did had a hard time to find the MS documentation explaining the same but currently I have deployed Universal printing solution after installing printers (not UP ready printers) locally in the VM/server.