Replacing printers using the Universal Print portal

Sometimes printers break down or need to be replaced by newer models. Traditionally, this would involve removing the old printer from a print server and adding a new one. This would require pushing the new printer to users' machines via policy or having them install the new printer manually.

Universal Print uses printer shares to streamline this process by "swapping" which printer is associated with a printer share.

Important

To swap printers, there must be at least one registered printer that is not already shared.

1. Select a printer share from the Printer Shares list
2. Click Swap printer
3. Select which printer should be swapped with the current one
4. Click Swap
5. If desired, it's now safe to unregister the old printer

When this process is followed to swap printers, no action is necessary on behalf of users to use the new printer. Because users install printer shares, not printers, on their machines, jobs will automatically be sent to the new printer once it's swapped.

For example, let's assume Printer 1 was shared as First Floor Printer. Users in the organization installed First Floor Printer on their machines. Later, the Printer 1 was replaced by a newer model, Printer 2. When Printer 1 and Printer 2 are swapped, users will still have First Floor Printer installed on their machines, but it now sends print jobs to Printer 2.