Universal Print

Businesses are doing more and more things digitally; however, printing on physical paper remains important. Universal Print is a relatively new platform-as-a-service on Azure that can simplify the whole printing configuration and maintenance process compared to a traditional print server environment.

After reading this chapter, you will be able to connect both legacy printers and modern printers that are Universal Print ready to the Microsoft cloud. We’ll also take a closer look at how you can assign printers to physical PCs and Cloud PCs as endpoints via Intune.

Long story short, you will become an expert in printing!

In this chapter, we’ll go through the following topics:

• What is Universal Print?
• Is Universal Print secure and where does my printed data go?
• Universal Print – architecture overview
• Configuring Universal Print
• Print clients – Windows
• Print clients – macOS
• Printers...

What is Universal Print?

Universal Print is a cloud-based print solution that allows IT admins to share printers as organizations migrate their users and devices to the cloud. Universal Print enhances security and privacy, reduces complexity for IT admins, and simplifies printing for end users. It eliminates on-premises print servers and lets you easily manage printers via a centralized portal in Azure. Admins can deploy printers on end user devices directly with Microsoft Intune.

Universal Print is built with the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) standard. You can now say goodbye to installing (and maintaining) printer drivers on devices and/or base images. Also, everything works with Microsoft Entra ID. This means that users can use the same set of credentials they use for other Microsoft services, like Windows 365 and Office 365 for Web, to print documents directly from a web browser via Word!

Here are some key benefits of using Universal Print:

• It accelerates...

Is Universal Print secure and where does my printed data go?

With Universal Print, the print data goes via the cloud. This is very similar to the way other Microsoft enterprise technologies like Outlook, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams upload data in the cloud. All print data is stored in Office data storage like other Office technologies.

Universal Print stores data as follows:

• There is a storage provisioned for each user in Office storage – just like Outlook provisions a mailbox. The documents that the user prints are uploaded in Universal Print and stored in this user’s storage.
• Each printer has its own storage provisioned in Office storage too. The printer’s storage stores all the printer metadata and print queues. The print queues store only the print job metadata as the documents are stored in the user’s storage.
• Universal Print also provisions some metadata, like a list of printer shares in Azure. This information...

Universal Print – requirements

In this section, you will learn about all the prerequisites to use Universal Print.

End user requirements

End users must have the following to be able to search printer shares and print:

• A Universal Print-eligible Microsoft 365 or Windows SKU license. Alternatively, a user may have a Universal Print standalone license, meaning a license bought just for Universal Print versus a bundle license such as Microsoft 365 E3. Licenses for Universal Print are automatically distributed via Entra ID.
• Windows desktops that are:
  • Running Windows 11, or Windows 10 version 1903 onwards.
  • Joined to Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft Entra Hybrid joined physical and virtual desktops are also supported.
• Alternatively, users can print from a Mac or cloud application that integrates with Universal Print (e.g., Microsoft Excel in a browser).

Admin requirements for managing Universal Print

Managing...

Learning how to deploy Universal Print

Before we start, make sure that your environment uses Microsoft Entra ID – either fully cloud-managed or hybrid identity with Microsoft Entra ID. Make sure the Windows 10 or later domain-joined devices box has been ticked. You can find information about how to set up Entra ID join and Hybrid Entra ID join in Chapter 13, Identity and Security Management.

Also, make sure your users and administrators have an eligible Universal Print license assigned in your Entra ID tenant.

See the following screenshot to see how you can change your Entra ID Connect configuration to Hybrid Entra ID join during the setup flow:

Figure 15.11: Entra ID Connect – enable Hybrid Entra ID join

Now, let’s look at what rights you need to configure and maintain Universal Print.

Printer management – custom roles

Universal Print integrates with Microsoft Entra ID. Using Entra ID, you can designate limited privilege administrators...

Summary

In this chapter, you’ve learned about a new Microsoft 365 service called Universal Print, how to configure the service, and how to publish printers to your endpoints via Intune.

In the next chapter, we’re going to talk about other devices that you can manage with Intune.

Questions

1. What port needs to be open in the firewall in order to use Universal Print?
   1. TCP - 443
   2. TCP - 445
2. Are print jobs with Universal Print sent to the cloud encrypted?
   1. Yes
   2. No
3. Does Universal Print support zero-trust?
   1. Yes, all traffic goes over the internet over SSL
   2. No

Answers

1. (a)
2. (a)
3. (a)

Further reading

If you want to learn more about Universal Print after reading this chapter, please use the following free online resources:

• Universal Print – Intune provisioning via https://aka.ms/UPintunetool
• Universal Print – Get started via https://aka.ms/UPdocs
• Universal Print – Secure release via https://aka.ms/UPqrcoderelease
• Universal Print – Simulated experience via https://aka.ms/GetToKnowUniversalPrint

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