Install a Printer Without Admin Rights on Windows 11

If you share a family PC, use a child’s account, or work on a company laptop, you have probably seen Windows ask for an administrator password just to add a printer. Whether you can install a printer without admin rights comes down to one thing: whether Windows needs to install a new driver. This guide explains why the prompt appears, what a standard account can do on its own, and the safe ways to get a printer working for every user.

Why Windows asks for an administrator

A printer driver is system software. It is installed once for the whole computer and runs inside the Windows print spooler, so a bad or malicious driver affects everyone on the PC. In 2021 a series of print spooler vulnerabilities, widely called PrintNightmare, showed how risky that could be.

Microsoft responded by changing the default. Its support article KB5005652 says that Windows updates released on August 10, 2021 and later require administrative privilege by default to install drivers through Point and Print, the mechanism used when you connect to a printer shared from another computer or a print server. Non-administrators can no longer install new printers, or update existing printer drivers, using drivers from a remote computer or server.

Microsoft documents a registry value, RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators, that controls this. A value of 1, or no value at all, keeps the administrator requirement. Microsoft recommends keeping it at 1 and says there is no combination of other mitigations equivalent to it.

What a standard account can usually do

The admin requirement is about installing drivers. In practice that leaves room for standard users in a few common cases:

• Printers that use Windows’ built-in driver. Modern network printers that support the Mopria standard print through Windows Ready Print, the printing system built into Windows, so no maker’s driver has to be installed. Our guide to Windows protected print mode explains Windows Ready Print in more detail.
• Printers whose driver is already installed. If an administrator has already installed the driver for that model, adding another printer that uses it does not install anything new.
• Removing your own printer connections and choosing your default printer, which are per-user settings. See set a default printer in Windows 11.

Exactly what is allowed can also depend on policies set by an organisation, so a work PC may be stricter than these examples.

Check which kind of account you have

Open Settings, Accounts, Your info. An administrator account shows Administrator under the account name; a standard account does not. On a family PC, an administrator can see every account under Settings, Accounts, Other users (or Family), and change an account type there. Knowing this first saves guessing at passwords when the prompt appears.

Step 1: try the normal route first

1. Open Start, Settings, Bluetooth & devices, Printers & scanners.
2. Select Add device and wait for the printer to appear.
3. Select Add device next to it.

If the printer installs without a prompt, you are done; print a test page. If it is not found, our Windows 11 add printer guide covers adding it by IP address. If Windows asks for administrator credentials, continue below.

Step 2 (home PC): install the driver once as administrator

On a home PC, the simplest fix is to let an administrator account do the one-time driver install:

1. Enter the administrator’s password at the prompt, or sign in to the administrator account.
2. Add the printer there and print a test page.
3. Sign back in to the standard account and add the printer again. Because the driver is now installed, it normally adds without a prompt.

An administrator can also put the driver in place without adding a printer, which suits a PC with several standard accounts. Microsoft’s pnputil adds a driver package to the driver store, and Add-PrinterDriver installs it for printing; our guide to adding a printer with PowerShell shows both commands. Our Windows 11 printer driver guide explains which driver to choose.

Do not give a child’s or guest’s everyday account administrator rights just for printing. Use the administrator account for the setup and keep daily accounts standard.

Step 2 (work or school PC): ask IT

On a managed PC, the restriction is usually deliberate. Common routes are:

• a self-service software portal where approved printers or drivers can be installed;
• a print server connection that IT has already prepared with drivers;
• a support request to have the printer added for you.

Do not edit the Point and Print registry value or group policy on a work PC. Microsoft’s own guidance treats lowering the restriction as a temporary measure for administrators, combined with other limits on which print servers are trusted.

Shared printers from another PC

Connecting to a printer shared from another Windows computer is exactly the Point and Print case Microsoft changed. If the sharing PC would have to send a driver to yours, a standard account will be asked for administrator rights. Two ways to avoid that:

• Put the printer on the network directly, so each PC prints to it without a share. Our printer sharing guide compares the options.
• Have an administrator connect each PC once, after which the driver is installed.

Quick answers

Situation	Admin needed?
Mopria network printer using Windows’ built-in driver	Usually no
Printer whose driver is already installed	Usually no
New maker’s driver	Yes
Shared printer that pushes a new driver (Point and Print)	Yes, by default since August 2021
Changing your own default printer	No

If a standard user later needs to clean up an old printer, our guide to removing a printer in Windows 11 notes which steps need administrator rights.