Restrict Users to Print Over HTTP Internet Printers

By default every user in Windows is allowed to print documents over HTTP protocol to Internet Printers remotely. This is a very effective and useful feature of Windows. With the use of this feature, a user does not have to leave his desk in order to take printouts.

Although this task can also be accomplished by using Network Printing but each and every method has its own advantage and disadvantage. So their can be situations when a user will need to be restricted to issue print commands for Internet printers over HTTP protocol.

In this tutorial we will learn how to do that – For the purpose of this tutorial we will need to use Group Policy.

1. Open Group Policies by running GPEDIT.MSC command from the run dialogue box of windows.
2. In the Group Policy Console follow this path – Local Computer Policy – Computer configuration – Administrative Templates – System – Internet Communication – Internet Communication Settings
3. In the right pane Open “Turn Off Printing Over HTTP” setting and enable it.

Now with this configuration the Internet Printing feature has been disabled in your client operating system. Note – you will have to implement this setting in all the clients in your network to disable Internet Printing on all of them or on other hand you can also use Active Directory for centralized group policy management.