How to Reset Printer Driver Settings to Windows Defaults in Windows 11

Printing Preferences vs. Printer Properties: What Actually Resets

Printing Preferences control the things you change most often: paper size, print quality, color vs. black and white, and duplex printing (printing on both sides of the page). These are stored per user and don’t need administrator rights to change.

Printer Properties hold the machine-wide settings. Inside its Advanced tab you’ll find Printing Defaults, which set the defaults every user on that PC starts from. Changing these requires administrator access because they affect everyone who prints to that device.

Say a printer is “printing weird” after a driver update, or an app changed a setting. It’s almost always the Printing Preferences that changed, not the Properties. Start there first.

Reset Printing Preferences to the Driver’s Default

This is the fastest fix and doesn’t need administrator privileges. It resets paper size, orientation, quality, and color settings back to what the driver ships with.

1. Open Settings and go to Bluetooth & devices › Printers & scanners You'll see a list of every printer installed on the PC.
2. Click the printer you want to reset. The page changes to show the printer's details and a list of options, including Printing preferences and Printer properties.
3. Click Printing preferences. A settings window opens. It's the driver's own window, so it looks different depending on the manufacturer. HP, Canon, and Brother all use their own layouts here instead of a standard Windows dialog.
4. Look for a button labeled Restore Defaults or Default, or sometimes just an icon that looks like a reset arrow. On most drivers it's on the main tab or inside an Advanced tab. Click it. The options on screen should snap back to the driver's standard values.
5. Click OK or Apply to save. The dialog closes and the printer now uses its default preferences again.

You can also reach the same dialog through the older Control Panel route. Open Control Panel, go to Devices and Printers, right-click the printer, and choose Printing preferences. Both paths open the identical driver window, so use whichever you're used to.

Restoring defaults can't be undone with one click. If you've tuned settings you want to keep, such as a custom paper size, write them down first.

Reset Printer Properties Defaults

Use this when the machine-wide default is wrong for everyone on the PC, not just you. This step requires administrator privileges because it changes settings for the whole PC.

You can reach Printer properties from two places. The modern route is Settings › Bluetooth & devices › Printers & scanners > your printer > Printer properties. The legacy route is through Control Panel. Both open the same properties dialog.

Using the Control Panel route:

1. Open Control Panel and go to Devices and Printers.
2. Right-click the printer and choose Printer properties. Don't pick Printing preferences. The wording is easy to mix up. The properties dialog has the printer's name in the title bar and several tabs, such as General, Sharing, Ports, and Advanced.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Click Printing Defaults. This opens the same style of driver dialog as Printing Preferences, but any changes here apply to every user account on the machine.
5. Click Restore Defaults if the driver offers it, then click OK to confirm and close each dialog.

If Printing Defaults is greyed out or Windows asks for administrator confirmation and you're on a standard (non-admin) account, you'll need someone with an administrator account to enter their credentials, or you can sign in as an administrator yourself.

If the Restore Defaults Button Is Missing or Greyed Out

Not every driver includes a reset button. This is a driver feature, not something Windows guarantees. It depends on which driver Windows installed:

• Generic / Microsoft IPP Class Driver — a basic, built-in driver Windows installs automatically for many network and USB printers. These stripped-down drivers usually have far fewer tabs and no restore option at all.
• Full manufacturer driver (Type 3 or Type 4) — downloaded from HP, Canon, Epson, Brother, and others. These almost always include a proper Restore Defaults button because the manufacturer built a fuller settings UI.

If your printer is using the generic driver, there's often no button to click. You can set each option (paper size, quality, duplex) back to what you want by hand. Or you can install the full manufacturer driver from the manufacturer's website, which usually brings the reset option with it.

Fully Reset the Driver by Removing and Reinstalling It

When Printing Preferences and Printer Properties still don't fix odd behavior, a full driver reinstall clears out anything corrupted in the current install. That covers jammed spool jobs, missing options, and behavior changes after a Windows 10 to Windows 11 upgrade. This requires administrator privileges, and removing the printer deletes any custom preferences you've set, so note down anything important first.

1. Open Settings and go to Bluetooth & devices › Printers & scanners
2. Click the printer, then click Remove device. Confirm when Windows asks if you're sure. The printer disappears from the list.
3. Open Control Panel, go to Devices and Printers, right-click any remaining icon for that printer, and choose Remove device if it's still listed. Sometimes the driver package stays registered even after you remove it from Settings.

Before you go further: the next step deletes driver packages, and the step after it may involve installing a driver from a website. Take two precautions first. Note the current driver version so you can go back to it if the new one is worse. In Print Management, the Drivers list shows the version of each driver. Also download drivers only from the printer manufacturer's official website, never from a third-party driver site or a search ad. If you can, save a copy of the installer you're replacing.

4. Open Print Management (search for it in the Start menu) if you want to remove the leftover driver package itself, not just the printer object. It's a built-in admin console, available in Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, and Education but not in Home. On Home, skip this step and rely on the manufacturer's installer to replace the driver. Expand Print Servers, your PC name, then Drivers. Right-click the driver and choose Delete.
5. Reconnect the printer. For USB, plug it back in. For a network printer, click Add device in Settings › Bluetooth & devices › Printers & scanners. Windows detects it and either installs its built-in driver or prompts you to install the manufacturer's driver.
6. Install the manufacturer's driver from their official website if you want the full preferences dialog rather than the generic one. Run the installer and follow its prompts. Restart the PC when it finishes. A restart isn't always required, but it clears out any print spooler cache tied to the old install and stops the printer reappearing with stale settings.

If the printer shows as Offline or fails to reinstall, check that it's powered on and connected to the same network or USB port, then try Add device again. A driver conflict from the old install is the most common cause of a failed reinstall. Deleting the driver package in Print Management before reconnecting usually clears it.

Check the "Let Windows Manage My Default Printer" Setting

This setting gets confused with driver preferences a lot, but it does something different. It controls which printer Windows automatically picks as your default, not how that printer prints. If your print jobs keep going to the wrong printer, check this setting instead of the driver preferences.

1. Open Settings and go to Bluetooth & devices › Printers & scanners
2. Find the toggle labeled Let Windows manage my default printer near the top of the page.
3. Turn it off if you want to choose a fixed default printer yourself. With it on, Windows switches the default based on which printer you used most recently at your current location. To undo the change, turn the toggle back on.

Turning this off doesn't touch any driver settings. It only changes which printer gets picked automatically. If you're chasing a print-quality or paper-size problem, this toggle won't fix it either way.

What to Do Next

If resetting preferences and reinstalling the driver still doesn't clear up the problem, the issue is probably in the print spooler rather than the driver itself. Clearing the spooler queue and restarting the Print Spooler service is the next thing worth trying.

If the printer connects over a network, also confirm it still has the correct IP address. A change there can look exactly like a driver problem even though the driver is fine.