{"id":9844,"date":"2024-07-14T13:18:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-14T13:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/easy-steps-to-set-or-change-the-default-printer-in-windows-10-and-11\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T11:19:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T11:19:45","slug":"easy-steps-to-set-or-change-the-default-printer-in-windows-10-and-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/easy-steps-to-set-or-change-the-default-printer-in-windows-10-and-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy Steps to Set or Change the Default Printer in Windows 10 and 11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft has changed how the default printer is assigned in Windows 10 and 11. Windows now always sets the default printer to the last printer the user successfully printed to in the current location. This means that if you print to different printers, the default printer may constantly change. Let\u2019s look at how to set the default printer using the Windows GUI, command prompt, or Group Policies.<\/p>\n<h2>Set a Default Printer Using the Windows Control Panel<\/h2>\n<p>The default printer can be set in Windows via the Settings pane.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Navigate to <strong>Settings<\/strong> -&gt; <strong>Printers and Scanners<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Disable the \u201c<strong>Let Windows manage my default printer<\/strong>\u201d option to prevent Windows from automatically changing your default printer.<\/li>\n<li>Then select the printer you want to set as the default and click <strong>Manage<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Click <strong>Set as default<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The classic Windows Control Panel can also be used to set a default printer. Go to Control Panel -&gt; Device and Printer (or run the command <code>shell:PrintersFolder<\/code>). Right-click on the printer and select <strong>Set as default printer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Change a Default Printer from the PowerShell Command Prompt<\/h2>\n<p>The <strong>wmic<\/strong> tool can be used to change a default printer from the command prompt. List installed printers:<\/p>\n<p><code>wmic printer get name,default<\/code><\/p>\n<p>The default printer has the <em>Default=True<\/em> attribute enabled.<br \/>\nChange the default print:<\/p>\n<p><code>wmic printer where name=\"Brother MFC-L2750DW\" call setdefaultprinter<\/code><\/p>\n<p>In addition, you can use <a href=\"https:\/\/woshub.com\/powershell-managing-printers-and-their-drivers-in-windows-8\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PowerShell to manage printers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>List printers:<\/p>\n<p><code>Get-CimInstance -ClassName CIM_Printer | select name,default<\/code><\/p>\n<p>Assign a default printer:<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><code>$Printer = Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_Printer -Filter \"Name='HP LaserJet M1530 MFP Series PCL 6'\"<br \/>\nInvoke-CimMethod -InputObject $Printer -MethodName SetDefaultPrinter<\/code><\/p>\n<div>In this case, I use the CIM class instead of WMI because the <code>Get-WMIObject<\/code> cmdlet is not supported in <a href=\"https:\/\/woshub.com\/install-update-powershell-windows\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">new versions of PowerShell Core 7.x<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>Enable the <strong>LegacyDefaultPrinterMode<\/strong> registry parameter to prevent Windows from automatically changing the default printer:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code>REG ADD \"HKCUSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWindows\" -v LegacyDefaultPrinterMode \/t REG_DWORD \/d 1 \/f<\/code><\/p>\n<h2>How to Set a Default Printer with GPO<\/h2>\n<p>If you need to set the default printer for many users in an Active Directory domain from a central location, you can use a GPO.<\/p>\n<p>In case you are <a href=\"https:\/\/woshub.com\/deploy-printers-to-users-gpo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">using Group Policy to assign shared printers to users<\/a> (User Configuration -&gt; Preferences -&gt; Control Panel Setting -&gt; Printer), enable the <strong>Set this printer as the default printer<\/strong> option in the GPP item.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The user\u2019s default printer set is stored in the <strong>Device<\/strong> parameter under the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWindows registry key. The following string format is used:<\/p>\n<pre>Brother MFC-L2750DW series,winspool,FILE:<\/pre>\n<p>Use the <a href=\"https:\/\/woshub.com\/how-to-create-modify-and-delete-registry-keys-using-gpo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">GPO to create this registry parameter<\/a> on the target user computers. This will change the default printer set in the user profile. Edit a <a href=\"https:\/\/woshub.com\/group-policy-active-directory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">domain GPO<\/a>, go to <strong>User Configuration<\/strong> -&gt; <strong>Preferences<\/strong> -&gt; <strong>Windows Settings<\/strong> -&gt; <strong>Registry<\/strong>, and create a new item with the following settings:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Hive: <code>HKCU<\/code><\/li>\n<li>Key Path: <code>SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWindows<\/code><\/li>\n<li>Value Name: <code>Device<\/code><\/li>\n<li>Value Type: <code>REG_SZ<\/code><\/li>\n<li>Value Data: <code>Brother MFC-L2750DW series, winspool, FILE:<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then disable automatic printer assignment in Windows using the GPO option <strong>Turn off Windows default printer management<\/strong> (User Configuration \u2192 Administrative Templates \u2192 Control Panel \u2192 Printers).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft has changed how the default printer is assigned in Windows 10 and 11. Windows now always sets the default printer to the last printer the user successfully printed to in the current location. This means that if you print to different printers, the default printer may constantly change. Let\u2019s look at how to set [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-windows-10","category-windows-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10277,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844\/revisions\/10277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}