- Windows 11 24H2 is reportedly causing a lot of problems with printers
- This affects all major printer makers, mainly on Copilot+ PCs
- Microsoft has admitted the problem and provided some workarounds
Windows 11 24H2 is continuing its run of trouble with bugs and this time we’re hearing about various difficulties with printers, which are mostly hitting Arm-based Copilot+ PCs, but also other computers (with x86 Intel and AMD chips) too.
Neowin reports that there are quite a number of complaints from those with printers who have upgraded to Windows 11 24H2 and are finding their device is no longer working. This is affecting all the best-known printer manufacturers, the likes of Brother, Canon, HP and so forth.
The issue is mainly being experienced by those with a Copilot+ PC powered by an Arm processor, as mentioned, and it either completely derails the printer, leaving it non-functional, or breaks certain features. In other cases, Windows 11 users can’t install the printer driver.
As noted at the outset, these gremlins in the works are also hitting standard (non-Arm, Intel and AMD CPU-based) PCs, and there are reports of various printer hiccups, and indeed printers vanishing from these systems, too.
On Reddit, one admin observes in a post about ‘24H2 problems hitting us hard’ that: “Print queues [are] clogging, that’s if the driver wasn’t randomly deleted from the machine.”
Printers going missing, or the driver being removed, appear to be common themes with 24H2, as well as not being able to install (or reinstall) said printer driver.
Potential workarounds to fix printer installation problems
Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and produced a support document which provides some possible workarounds to get your printer going on an Arm PC.
The company notes: “Some Arm PCs (for example, Copilot+ PCs) may not be able to add or install a printer using the included installer or the installer from the manufacturer’s website.”
The first suggestion to get around an installation failure is simply to connect your printer using a USB port.
Otherwise, you can connect the printer by going into the Settings app, then Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners, where you select the Add device option. This then allows you to manually add the printer to your system (hopefully, at any rate).
With any luck, one of these two options will help you get around any inability to install a printer – though there may still be other scenarios where printers are misfiring with Windows 11 24H2 by the sound of things.
All this comes among a raft of issues with Windows 11 24H2, including new Intel Z890 motherboards constantly crashing, drive space mysteriously vanishing, and also Task Manager malfunctioning among many other problems. The good news is that Microsoft is working on fixing a bunch of these bugs already, but there’s a lot of firefighting to be done.