Isolate print drivers from applications

Supported OS tags: Windows10, Windows10RT, Windows11, Windows8, Windows81, WindowsRT, WindowsRT81, WindowsServer2012, WindowsServer2012R2, WindowsServer2016

Determines if print driver components are isolated from applications instead of normally loading them into applications. Isolating print drivers greatly reduces the risk of a print driver failure causing an application crash. Not all applications support driver isolation. By default, Microsoft Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Word 2007, Word 2010 and certain other applications are configured to support it. Other applications may also be capable of isolating print drivers, depending on whether they are configured for it. If you enable or do not configure this policy setting, then applications that are configured to support driver isolation will be isolated. If you disable this policy setting, then print drivers will be loaded within all associated application processes. Notes: -This policy setting applies only to applications opted into isolation. -This policy setting applies only to print drivers loaded by applications. Print drivers loaded by the print spooler are not affected. -This policy setting is only checked once during the lifetime of a process. After changing the policy, a running application must be relaunched before settings take effect.

This policy has no additional user input fields.

• Computer
  Activate Internet printing

  Windows 2000 only
• Computer
  Add Printer wizard - Network scan page (Managed network)

  At least Windows Vista
• Computer
  Add Printer wizard - Network scan page (Unmanaged network)

  At least Windows Vista
• Computer
  Allow job name in event logs

  At least Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 or Windows RT
• Computer
  Allow Print Spooler to accept client connections

  At least Windows Server 2003
• Computer
  Allow printers to be published

  At least Windows 2000
• Computer
  Allow pruning of published printers

  At least Windows 2000
• Computer
  Always rasterize content to be printed using a software rasterizer

  At least Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 or Windows RT
• Computer
  Always render print jobs on the server

  At least Windows Vista
• Computer
  Always send job page count information for IPP printers

  At least Windows Server 2016, Windows 10
• Computer
  Automatically publish new printers in Active Directory

  Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 only
• Computer
  Change Microsoft XPS Document Writer (MXDW) default output format to the legacy Microsoft XPS format (*.xps)

  At least Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 or Windows RT