Software · guide
By Alberto Gulotta · Updated · 9 min read
How to set up a printer is shorter than the box suggests, and both Microsoft and Apple say so on their own pages. A new printer arrives with a disc, or a card pointing at a download page, and starting there is the obvious move — it is also the fallback rather than the first step, in each company’s own words.
Microsoft: “Windows supports most printers out of the box so in most cases, special printer drivers or software doesn’t need to be installed.”
Apple: “When you add a printer, macOS uses AirPrint to connect to the printer. With AirPrint, you can print without installing an app, additional drivers, or other software that could compromise your privacy.”
Two companies, two operating systems, the same instruction — and Apple attaches a reason to it that goes beyond convenience. The disc in the box and the download on the manufacturer’s site are the fallback, not the first step. Both vendors reach for them only when the printer turns out not to be supported directly.
Why there is a route without the disc at all
AirPrint is Apple’s name for it and Windows has its own, but neither company invented the thing underneath. It is a published standard, and the body that publishes it describes it as “a PWG standard that allows personal computers and mobile devices to find and print to networked and USB printers without using vendor-specific software”. On what that means in practice: today’s printers of this kind work “without the need to download and install driver software or configure print queues”.
And the number that decides whether this page applies to your printer: “98% of all printers sold today support IPP/2.0 and DNS-SD” — the two things the standard is built on. Worth reading with the source in view: the Printer Working Group is an industry body whose members are the printer makers themselves, so that is their own figure about their own products. It is still the only published one, and it names the clients it covers: “Chrome OS, CUPS, Linux, macOS, Windows”.
Which is why the disc in the box is usually the wrong first move, rather than a shortcut you are skipping. If the printer is recent, the operating system already knows how to talk to it, and the manufacturer’s installer is adding software on top of a conversation that would have happened anyway.
The practical consequence is worth stating plainly: plug it in, or put it on the Wi-Fi, and look before you install anything. If the printer appears, the job is done and the manufacturer’s software was never needed. If it does not, that software is still there and still an option.
Plugged in by cable, it usually needs none of this: Microsoft says a directly connected printer “normally installs automatically”.
And a note worth having before you give up: “It might take a few minutes for the list of printers to finish populating.”
And often nothing at all: “If your Mac and printer are already connected to the same Wi-Fi network, the printer might be available to you without any setup.”
Apple also names a shortcut: open Print Center from Spotlight, then Printer › Add Printer.
One caveat Microsoft publishes about its own newest machines, and it inverts the usual advice. On some ARM PCs — the example given is Copilot+ PCs — a printer cannot be added when using an installer provided by the printer manufacturer. Microsoft’s fix is to ignore that installer and follow the Windows route instead.
To check whether a machine is one of them: Start › Settings › System › About, and under Device specifications an ARM device “have ARM based processor listed next to System type”. Microsoft adds the sensible caveat that if the printer manufacturer has different guidance, follow theirs.
That ARM note is unusual enough to be worth reading twice. It is a manufacturer telling you that somebody else’s installer is the thing breaking the installation, on hardware the manufacturer sells. It is also dated, in the sense that it describes a situation Microsoft says it is aware of — so on a recent machine it is worth trying the Windows route first regardless, because that is the advice either way.
When the printer is on the network and still will not appear
The second item on that list is the one that sounds like a misprint. A cable, to set up wireless printing. Apple gives the step without a reason attached, and this guide is not going to invent one — what matters is that it is in the current instructions, so an instruction sheet telling you to plug in the printer first is not necessarily out of date.
One thing that is true on both systems and worth checking before any of this. Apple puts it under Before you begin: unpack the printer, install the ink or toner, add paper, turn it on, “and make sure it’s not displaying any errors”. A printer with a warning light is a printer that may be refusing to announce itself, and no amount of clicking Add Device on the computer will change that.
The guides below take it four ways: the software you probably do not need, the two routes, the printer that will not appear, and the machines where the usual advice is reversed.
Four ways in.
Both vendors say the same thing in different words, and one of them attaches a privacy reason to it. The disc is the fallback.
Not covered here. It will not tell you to install the manufacturer’s software first. Microsoft and Apple both say it is usually unnecessary, and Microsoft names a case where it is the fault.
It will not treat a missing printer as a computer problem by default. Apple’s own list starts with the printer: powered, loaded, and showing no errors.
And it will not skip the cable step because it sounds obsolete. It is in Apple’s instructions, it is needed once, and it is how a printer with no keyboard learns your network. What holds instead is simple: the statement that drivers are usually unnecessary and the ARM caveat are quoted from Microsoft’s and Apple’s own documentation.
Everything that happens between pressing print and holding the page.
Written by Alberto Gulotta
Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.
Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.
Written on 22 August 2026 · last checked 23 September 2026.
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