How can I allow members of the Printer Operators group to Add Printers?

A. While members of the Print Operators group can stop and restart the Print Spooler, modify jobs and other admin functions they cannot add or modify the actual printers. This can be changed by performing the following:

  1. Start the registry editor (regedt32.exe, not regedit.exe)
  2. Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors
  3. From the Security menu select Permissions
  4. Click the Add button
  5. Select "Printer Operators" and give them Full Control access. Click OK
  6. Close the registry editor

Stop and start the machine for the change to take effect. Alternatively just stop and start the print spool service,

C:\> net stop spooler
C:\> net start spooler


Discuss this Article 5

Craig Howie (not verified)
on Feb 14, 2001
Surely this process would allow anyone access to installing their own printers as long as you gave them permissions? Rgds CH
addagats
on Jul 9, 2008
Hi, This doesn't work for me. Surprisingly, if i give a domain user Print Operator privileges on my win2k3 Enterprise SP2 R2 server, he can't restart spooler service when we connect to servers using RDP
Todd (not verified)
on Jul 24, 2008
addagats- I forwarded your comment to John, and he sent me the following response: "The Windows 2003 Enterprise (and later) Print-spooler service has its own permissions. You need to modify the service's security configuration to allow people to control the service. The easiest way to modify the security configuration is to use Group Policy to modify the service's permissions by opening Computer Configuration, Policies, Windows Settings, Security Settings, System Services, Print Spooler, Edit Security. Then grant the Print-Operators group the start, stop, and pause permissions necessary to control the spooler." Hope it helps. -Todd Erickson

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