HP printer app is installing on PCs whether they have HP printers or not

Earlier this month, Microsoft posted a brand new entry in its record of recognized points with absolutely up-to-date Home windows 11 PCs: The HP Sensible printer app was putting in routinely on Home windows 10 and Home windows 11 PCs whether or not they had an HP printer put in or not, altering the names and icons of their related printers and inflicting error messages.

Affected PCs will normally seem to have an HP LaserJet M101-M106 related, so search for that mannequin quantity in your record of printers (individuals who truly personal a kind of HP LaserJets presumably will not have issues). All variations of Home windows 11 are affected, plus all at the moment supported variations of Home windows 10; Home windows Server variations going again to 2012 will also be affected.

Microsoft continues to look into the problem, however in an replace posted yesterday, the corporate acknowledged unambiguously that HP was to not blame. The corporate additionally says that almost all printers ought to proceed to work positive, and that they “will proceed to make use of the anticipated drivers for printer operations.” But when your printer depends on a third-party app for extra performance, which may be damaged.

The best way that print drivers work has modified loads in the previous couple of years, one thing that most likely partially explains each the undesirable app set up and the truth that fundamental printing ought to largely proceed to work.

Slightly than utilizing bespoke drivers, trendy printers related to computer systems operating trendy OSes largely use a generic driver constructed on prime of the Web Printing Protocol (IPP). This prevents issues induced through the use of outdated proprietary printer drivers with a contemporary OS and in addition permits working programs that may’t set up proprietary print drivers (like iOS) to make use of printers anyway. These generic drivers have been profitable sufficient that Microsoft is slowly deprecating legacy print drivers fully.

So as to add additional printer-specific performance, then, printer producers now have to do it in separate apps like HP Sensible, which increase the core performance offered by the generic driver. Microsoft calls these Print Assist Apps. Once you join a brand new printer to Home windows, it should normally obtain that app and set up it routinely, the identical method that Home windows Replace routinely tries to put in drivers for brand spanking new GPUs, webcams, or different equipment the primary time you join them.

It is seemingly that no matter bug is inflicting the issue made these PCs consider they’d an HP printer related, after which Home windows labored the way in which it is designed to work and downloaded the HP printer app in consequence. The questions are: What induced this bug? Can it additionally trigger different issues? And might it’s rolled again in order that the HP app disappears and everybody’s printers return to wanting and dealing the way in which they’re speculated to? Microsoft will hopefully have solutions for some or all of those quickly.