Windows 11 users (as well as those on Windows 10) have been experiencing weirdness around a frustrating bug with printers, but the good news is that there’s now a fix.
The bad news is that it’s not quite a straightforward solution, as rather unusually, Microsoft requires the installation of a standalone troubleshooting utility in order to facilitate repairs.
As we’ve previously reported, the problem is that PCs are getting the HP Smart app installed when they haven’t got an HP printer connected – or even a printer at all, in some cases – and printers are being renamed as a specific HP LaserJet (whatever their model).
As a result of this, some functionality is failing to work with affected printers, and there’s been quite a lot of head scratching going on (especially for those who don’t have a printer at all, who are apparently suffering at the hands of the Microsoft Print to PDF icon being renamed).
This will reverse any printer renaming which has taken place, and reinstate the correct icons for printers, and uninstall the HP Smart app if it shouldn’t have been installed.
You can check out Microsoft’s support page for the full instructions on how to use the tool here.
Analysis: Metadata issue confirmed
The theory behind this bug was that the printer weirdness was happening because of incorrect metadata supplied in a Windows update, which led to printers being wrongly identified as an HP LaserJet.
It seems that idea was bang on as the tool which brings in the fix is called the ‘Microsoft Printer Metadata Troubleshooter.’
Normally, we’d expect the fix to be piped through via Windows Update, so as noted, it’s rather unusual to have to go through a separate download. It’s a slightly clunky process, in short, but at least it is a fix, which was much-needed for some folks, because in some cases, this bug could prevent functions beyond basic printing from working.
Microsoft revealed in a new document that it will no longer service third-party printer drivers on devices that use Windows OS, including Windows 11.
According the article, Microsoft will allow IPP Class Driver and Mopria-compliant print devices, the latter of which got native with Windows 10 version 21H2. These will be supported instead of manufacturer-made drivers via Windows Update. This means that printer manufacturers won’t have to provide dedicated drivers, which is already a huge benefit to them.
On the consumer end, manufacturers can still offer print customization via Microsoft Store apps. Thanks to the much more streamlined and standardized approach to drivers, another consumer benefit is that there will be plenty of performance and reliability improvements alongside broad compatibility across Windows versions and editions.
The FAQ also details that Mopria certification will be a mandatory requirement for HLK (Hardware Lab Kit). It ensures printers will be compatible with other devices, including PCs, smartphones, tablets, and more: another benefit for buyers who won’t have to check compatibility themselves.
Of course, Microsoft has a planned timeline to slowly faze out v3 and v4 third-party driver support, which will take place over several years until 2027. Below you can see the full timetable.
It’s important to note that even when the switchover is complete, buyers will still have access to any existing third-party drivers. This means your old printer that’s still kicking won’t be rendered useless once support ends and only first-party drivers are updated.
Windows 11 is still bad
This move is absolutely the right decision from Microsoft, as first-party drivers make installation and maintenance much simpler. I recall my own headaches tracking down and installing old drivers for my Brother printer; having the option to just use one from Microsoft would have saved me plenty of trouble.
That said, it would be nice if Microsoft could be so considerate when it comes to literally anything else involving Windows 11. For instance, its obsession with getting users to upgrade to Windows 11 is annoying at best and downright enraging at worst. Also the tons of bloatware included with pre-built PCs and laptops, the aggressive ads in the Start Menu, the popular features in previous versions that were dropped in Windows 11, etc.
And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg, with plenty more issues and problems that have been plaguing the OS. Guess you can’t win them all. Or even most of them.
If you're anything like us, you rarely need to think about where to buy a printer because your office has one. However, now that so many people are working remotely, potentially without the critical IT infrastructure they're used to, you might be on the market for a printer of your very own. We're here to help.
But because so many people are currently on the lookout for supplies for working from home, supply is a little bit short at the moment. Luckily, we here at TechRadar are pros at scavenging the web to find the best deals around, and we went ahead and did just that.
So, whether you're looking for something that can keep up with your office printer or you just want something that can spit out some shipping labels every now and then we've got you covered.
Learn more about what printer is best for you with our list of the best home printer 2020: the top printers for home use.
Brother now has the cheapest colour laser printer in the world, the HL-L8260CDW, which has taken the crown from Lexmark's C3326DW.
There are a couple of caveats, though. The offer is limited to the United Kingdom and you have to use a cashback mechanism to maximise the value.
Essentially, you'll need to pay the full price upfront (£175.19 or $ 225.99) and then submit paperwork to claim £100 off, bringing the final price to £75.19 (or $ 96.99). For some reason, it's significantly more expensive in the US where Newegg sells it for a staggering $ 285.
For your money, you'll get a printer we once described as built like a tank, with build quality that rivals much dearer models. It comes with a three-year warranty as standard and does automatic duplex printing, as well as wireless connectivity.
It's also fast, capable of printing at up to 31 pages per minute with a 300-sheet capacity that can be increased to 900 if needed. Add-in advanced security and administrative features and you get a pretty convincing small business printer, that looks like a genuine bargain.
Note that it doesn’t have a scanner or a fax, which would have made it an almost perfect photocopier and all in one printer.
If you don’t think you need one of the best home printers in your house, think again. Just like in the office, you need a printer in your household that can handle printing without a snag. After all, your time at home is just as important as your time at work.
The best home printers need to be more versatile than regular printers since the modern household needs to print out a wide range of documents. You'll often find you need to print out forms and documents in your day to day. Plus, a home printer that can do an excellent job printing your holiday snaps will save you from shelling out a lot of money. And, unlike big and bulky business printers, these are all-in-one printers that take up a small bit of space.
No matter what size of household and family demands you have, you’ll find the best home printer for you on this list. And, our price comparison tool makes sure you get the best deals on the one you pick as well.
Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to [email protected] with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
Whether you’re trying to run a more eco-friendly household or you’re just fed up with having to run out go get ink at the most inconvenient times – in the middle of printing your important documents, for example – you might love the Epson EcoTank ET-3760. This all-in-one printer is cartridge-free and comes with refillable bottles that contain up to two years’ worth of ink instead. It doesn’t have a massive paper capacity, only 150 sheets at a time, that’s hardly a deal-breaker, especially if you’re just mostly using it for personal stuff. It’s a bit expensive, but think of all the money you’ll save not having to run to the store and get replacement cartridges all the time.
Despite its compact size, the Brother INKvestment MFC-J995DW is a monster printer. It’s incredibly efficient, being able to print for up to a year without having to change its ink cartridge. And, it’s also a feature-rich and intuitive machine perfect for any home or small business office. You can print to it from just about any device wirelessly and, for mobile, you don’t even need a network to do it, thanks to its NFC (near field communication) technology that connects directly to the printer. While interfacing with its 2.7” color display, you can even print from and scan to the cloud.
Image Credit: Kyocera
This stout laser printer takes up relatively little space, given its high capacity for paper and toner. It means you can keep printing quickly and efficiently and with lower running costs than an equivalent inkjet. The display is rather fiddly, but in all other respects, this colour printer is easy to use and can be relied upon for immaculate mono and colour documents time after time.
Thanks to its 6-color individual ink system, the Canon Pixma TS9120 delivers exceptional photo quality results. The Canon also is very flexible with its connection capabilities, allowing for both bluetooth and wi-fi to print. And you’re not limited to any device. If you want to print from a tablet or smartphone or even from the cloud, the Canon can handle it. The printer also comes with some photo-specific features such as Photo Blue ink as part of the 6-color system and built-in creative filters to add something a little extra to your photos. Lastly, this printer comes in a choice of three different two-tone color options, giving you some cosmetic choices that you don’t really see with printers.
Image Credit: Ricoh
The Brother HLL2395DW is an ideal printer for any small business that needs to do a lot of printing and to do it quickly. So while you may be limited to black and white with this printer, you’ll be able to print up to 36 pages in a minute and could probably spit out a whole book before having to reload the printer, thanks to a 250 page capacity. Like other recent Brother printers, it has an intuitive display that allows you to print from and scan to cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive as well as its NFC “touch to connect” printing which allows you to access it from a mobile device without even needing a network connection. All-in-all, this is a pretty nifty printer.
Image Credit: Samsung
Samsung’s smart-looking laser printer is equipped with both Wi-Fi and NFC for easy mobile printing and is supported by a sophisticated mobile app. It’s an easy size to accommodate at home, but you can fit a useful amount of paper and toner inside, making it good for a monthly cycle of 40,000 pages. It won’t automatically print both sides of the page, but it does have a manual duplex mode.
Image Credit: TechRadar
When we tested it, this was the smallest laser printer around and likely to remain so. Being as small and inexpensive as an inkjet, yet with all the speed, economy and consistency of a laser, the LaserJet Pro M15w is in many ways the ideal home printer. It manages to hold one hundred sheets of paper and print on them at the respectable rate of 19ppm. There’s no duplex mode, sadly, and no display, but at this price it’s hard to argue.
This big Brother blurs the line between home and office printer by combining the fast print speed and high capacity of a laser machine with the superior photo finish of an inkjet. We would recommend it for both applications because although it is smaller than the laser equivalent MFC-L8690CDW, the inkjet MFC-J5945DW can handle A3 paper. There’s really nothing that this fully featured 4-in-1 can’t do and it carries out all tasks satisfactorily.
This humble all-in-one can scan and copy, but its real strength is in printing photos. Frustratingly, there’s no Ethernet port, nor a USB port for printing from a flash drive and it churns very slowly, but the results are surprisingly good for such an affordable inkjet. The supplied starter cartridges are rather light on ink, but if you replace them with high-capacity carts, then the running cost is competitive too.
Image Credit: Epson
Printers aimed at the home office that can handle A3 paper are not common, but ones that can automatically print on both sides of an A3 page are downright rare. The WorkForce WF-7210DTW is one such beast and it does so quite successfully. Print quality is impressive, be that monochrome text, or a glossy photo. The long list of features includes both Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity and the two paper trays can hold 500 sheets combined.
In this guide to the best photo printers, we look at the top devices for ensuring your photos look their best when you make physical copies of them.
No matter if you're a professional photographer, or merely a keen amateur that likes to take holiday photos, you'll want the very best photo printer your budget can stretch to – and we're here to help.
These days, there's a huge range of photo printers to choose from, so our best photo printers guide is here to make things more simple. We've picked the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to photo printers – from affordable desktop photo printers for everyday use, to expensive studio-quality professional photo printers and even wireless printers that can be used with a smartphone.
The best photo printers come in every shape and size, from budget photo printers that are easy to use, portable devices and even professional-level photo printers. Fortunately, this means that no matter what you’re looking for, you should be able to find the best photo printer for your needs.
Not only have we collected the very best photo printers for a huge range of budgets and use cases, our very own price comparison tool will also scour the internet for you and deliver the best prices.
The Canon Pixma Pro-100 is a monster of a photo printer. Its 8-ink dye system called ChromaLife 100+ provides excellent color accuracy and a wide range of colors for vivid prints that you would want to hang in a museum. Its large format allows you to print up to 13” x 19” prints and, with its two paper trays, you’re able to cover just about any paper stock you can think of, making this printer incredibly versatile.
Despite its sleek dimensions, this smooth 3-in-1 inkjet device is able to print on A3-size paper and uses not four, but six inkjet cartridges to achieve superior colour accuracy. It means your ink costs are rather high, but it’s worth it for the beautifully shaded results. The scanner is only A4-size, but it makes very high resolution scans and combined with the high print resolution, you can make near identical colour copies. There’s no fax and print speeds are slow, but in all other respects, the Epson Expression Photo XP-970 is hard to beat. For an idea of its performance you can read our review of the almost identical Epson Expression Photo XP-960.
This A2-size print-only device will suit any business that needs to turn out professional quality large format colour documents. It uses Epson’s nine-colour UltraChrome HD inkset for lifelike colour shading, which come in high capacity 80ml cartridges. Add the paper roll option and this machine can handle high print runs, or turn out impressive panoramic posters. Unsurprisingly, it takes up quite a bit of room and the cost is high, although considerably lower that outsourcing your prints.
Want to produce borderless photo-quality prints of up to 13” x 19”? Most printers just can’t do that. The Canon IP8720 however can. And with its 6-color ink and 9600 x 2400 max DPI, you get gorgeous and rich color reproduction as well as incredible detail. The Canon also allows for a plethora of ways to print including from mobile devices using their Canon Print App or from the cloud with AirPrint and Google Cloud Print.
It looks a little ungainly with the refillable ink tanks ruining the symmetry of this otherwise compact all-in-one, but it’s the refined EcoTank system that sets this model apart from the competition. If you can swallow the high price tag, your ongoing ink costs will be very low and Epson’s five-colour printing guarantees excellent image quality, especially with photos on photo paper.
This humble all-in-one can scan and copy, but its real strength is in printing photos. Frustratingly, there’s no Ethernet port, or USB port for printing from a flash drive and it churns very slowly, but the results are surprisingly good for such an affordable inkjet. The supplied starter cartridges are rather light on ink, but if you replace them with high-capacity carts, then the running cost is competitive too.
Sitting at the top of Canon’s Pixma range, the TS9150 looks like a premium product as you might expect, with a giant touchscreen display nestling up-front. It also boasts a high-resolution printing and scanning and Canon’s excellent six-ink system. By using black pigment ink alongside dye-based colours, photographic prints look especially realistic.
Canon’s most affordable printer to include ink tanks instead of cartridges is a modest 4-in-1 that could work well in a small office that needs to run out lots of colour documents. It prints very slowly and cannot print on both sides of the page, but in all other respects, it holds up well. The cartridge-less system is very economical and the box includes enough ink for 6,000 mono and 7,000 colour pages.
If you want results that look like they came from a photo lab, the Epson Surecolor P400 is hard to beat. Not only does it come with an 8-color ink set including both matte and photo black for a full spectrum of rich color, but it has cut-sheet and roll paper support that allows you to produce just about any project you can think of. The ink system includes 14 mL cartridges that can be individually replaced, making this a printer that won’t run out of ink in the middle of a project or waste precious ink.
HP’s oddly shaped all-in-one includes every feature from a fax facility, to an SD card slot, while giving you easy access to them via a colourful touchscreen interface. The coloured inks are combined in one cartridge and if you subscribe to HP’s Instant Ink service, it will be automatically replaced just before you run out. It feels a little flimsy, but photos prints in particular, look vibrant.
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