Replace old or broken printers using Azure Portal

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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 asking them to install the new printer manually.

Universal Print makes this process more seamless. Because users install printer shares instead of physical printers on their devices, replacing a physical printer is as easy as changing which printer device a printer share represents – "swapping" printers.

How to swap printers

  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.

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