I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve set up a printer on Windows, and it always went the same way. Find the manufacturer’s site, download an installer padded with software I never asked for, wait, restart, hope it worked. Half the time it didn’t, and I ended up back at square one.

Before that, it was even worse. Every new printer used to come with its own driver CD, and you dug through a junk drawer to find it because Windows wouldn’t recognize the thing without it. If you’d lost the disc, or your laptop didn’t even have an optical drive anymore, you were stuck downloading the same files from a manufacturer’s site anyway, just with extra steps first. That habit stuck around Windows setups for years after most of us stopped buying anything on physical media.

I expected the downloadable type of experience when I plugged my Epson XP-4105 into a Lenovo IdeaPad that had never seen a printer before. Instead, I ended up testing Microsoft’s new default for how Windows sets up printers, and it wasn’t what I was braced for.

Microsoft released this new printer system on July 1, 2026. It’s called Windows Ready Print, and it’s supposed to replace the old driver hunt with something simpler. I got to see how that held up on my own laptop, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Windows Ready Print replaces the old driver hunt

What actually changed on July 1

Windows Ready Print is Microsoft’s rebrand and expansion of what it previously called the Modern Print Platform. The core shift is a move away from vendor-specific driver packages toward standards-based printing, using the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and a single built-in Windows driver instead of one written by each printer manufacturer.

Now that Microsoft uses Ready Print, Windows has started favoring its own inbox IPP driver over third-party drivers for any compatible printer, and new printer installs on eligible devices have begun defaulting to Ready Print instead of the old OEM install path. Existing printers you’ve already set up are left alone. This only applies to new installations on new or freshly configured machines, which is exactly the situation I had with the IdeaPad.

My printer installed itself without a single dialog box

No wizard, no driver, no waiting

I went to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners > Add device, selected the Epson off my network, and that was it. No installer window opened. No driver selection screen appeared and there wasn’t a prompt to visit Epson’s site. The printer simply appeared in the list with a status of “Ready.”

The whole process, from clicking Add device to seeing “Ready” in the list, took somewhere between one and three minutes. I ran a test print right after, and it came out fine on the first try. Easy peasy.

One detail worth flagging if you try this yourself: Windows listed my printer as “EPSON XP-4100 Series,” not XP-4105, because Epson uses shared drivers across that product line. My XP-4105 is confirmed on Epson’s own list of Mopria-certified (an industry alliance that supports standard, driverless printing) printers alongside the XP-4100 and XP-4200. If your printer shows up under a slightly different model name than what’s printed on the box, that’s likely normal.

Not every printer gets the same treatment

How to check, and how to opt out

In order to work with Microsoft Ready Print, your printer needs to be Mopria-certified, as above, or otherwise IPP-capable. Older printers, or ones that only shipped with proprietary drivers, will still fall back to the traditional Windows install process.

You can also turn off the behavior entirely, and you’ll find that toggle at Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners > Default install printers using Windows Ready Print. It’s on by default, which is why it worked so well to install my Epson. If you’d rather go back to the older way, toggle this setting to Off before you add a new printer.

That same preferences page also lists Windows protected print mode, a related but separate security feature that blocks third-party drivers outright. It’s not enabled automatically. Ready Print and protected print mode get talked about together because they shipped around the same time, but they’re not the same switch, and turning one on doesn’t turn on the other.

Of course, not every printer setup will be this smooth. Older hardware, printers without network connectivity, and anything Epson, HP, or Canon hasn’t bothered to certify will still make you manage your printers the old way. Ready Print only helps if your printer and your Windows build both qualify.

I’m done fighting driver installers

One of my favorite things about running macOS the last 10 years or so is the lack of weird printer driver hunting or install wizards. Now that Windows has such a frictionless setup feature, It should remove a little of my discomfort with using Windows. If your printer is on the eligibility list, and you’re running Windows 11 with the latest July 2026 update, the hardest part might just be connecting your printer to the Wi-Fi. Give Windows Ready Print a try and see what you think.