Getting Started with Atlas Spool

Deploy network printers to Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts and Windows devices with Atlas Spool.

Before you begin

  • The Atlas Spool add-on, which is available on every plan, including the free Community plan (see Billing below)
  • The Atlas AVD agent (the Atlas Reach agent) on the Windows session hosts or devices that should receive printers
  • A network path from those machines to each printer's address and port
  • The spool.view permission to see Atlas Spool, and spool.manage to add printers, drivers and assignments

How Atlas Spool works

Atlas Spool manages printer definitions, the assignments that decide which machines get which printer, and the install status each agent reports back. The agent checks its assignments about every 30 minutes, installs or removes printers to match, and reports the result.

  • Printers install as direct-IP printers over RAW (port 9100 by default) or LPR.
  • Print jobs travel from the session host straight to the printer. Nothing flows through Atlas.
  • The agent only ever removes printers it installed itself. A printer someone added by hand, even one with the same name, is left alone.

There is no print server. Atlas Spool never receives, queues or holds print jobs, and never sees document content. By default it keeps no job or page history either; if you turn on print job collection, the agent reports each finished job's details (not its content) for the Usage tab. See Print usage reports below.

Use the setup guide

The first time you open Atlas Spool, choose Open setup guide. The Atlas Spool setup guide takes you from an empty tenant to an installed printer in three steps: define your first printer (or pick one Atlas Reach already discovered), assign it to session hosts, and watch the rollout. You can skip it and use the pages below instead.

Add a printer

  1. Go to Atlas Operations → Spool and choose Add printer.
  2. Under Identity, enter a Name. This is the Windows printer name the agent installs, so it must be unique in the tenant. Display name, Description and Location are optional.
  3. Under Connection, enter the printer's IP address or host name, the Port, and the Protocol: RAW or LPR. LPR also needs a Queue name.
  4. Under Driver & hardware, pick the Driver. Only drivers in your Driver repository are listed (see below). Model, manufacturer, paper sizes, color and double-sided support are optional.
  5. Review the details and choose Add printer.

Adding a printer does not install it anywhere. It installs only once you assign it.

Assign the printer

Open the printer's Manage view from the Managed tab. Choose a Target type, enter the target and choose Assign. Turn on Set as default printer to make it the default on the matching machines.

  • Host pool: the Azure host pool's resource name, not a friendly name.
  • Session host: the machine's computer name.
  • User (UPN): a user's sign-in name, such as alice@contoso.com. The printer follows the user to whichever pooled session host they land on.
  • Group: the Microsoft Entra group's object ID. Nested groups count.
  • Device group: an Atlas Reach device group.

When several assignments set a default, the most specific one wins: a session host's beats a user's, a user's beats a group's, and a group's beats a host pool's. On a multi-session host each signed-in user gets their own default.

Apply changes now

Agents pick up new and removed assignments on their next check, within about 30 minutes. To apply them at once on one machine, go to Atlas Reach, right-click the device (or use the device's More or Quick actions menu) and choose Refresh printers. Install results appear in Atlas Spool.

  • Removing an assignment uninstalls the printer from every matching machine on its next check.
  • Deleting a printer removes the definition and all of its assignments, and agents remove it from machines on their next check.

Check rollout health

The Manage view's Rollout health lists each machine that has reported on the printer, with its state, the last message and the last attempt.

  • Pending: the agent is acting on the assignment.
  • Installed: the printer is on the machine.
  • Failed: the install did not work. The message says why, for example a missing driver or a same-named printer that Atlas did not install.
  • Removed: the agent took the printer off the machine.

A machine that has not checked in since you assigned the printer has no row yet. A failed install is retried on the next check, then after 1, 2, 4 and at most 8 hours. Changing the printer, uploading a new driver package or choosing Refresh printers retries straight away.

Reachability

Where your deployment probes printers on the network, the Managed tab shows Online, Offline and Unknown tiles and a Reachability column. Unknown means the printer has not been probed yet from somewhere that can reach it. Reachability is for information only and never blocks an install. Without a probe, the tiles and column are hidden.

Manage the driver repository

The Driver repository page lists the drivers Atlas Spool may install. It starts with a built-in catalog of common drivers, so you can add a printer without uploading anything. The printer form offers only drivers from this list.

  1. Go to Atlas Operations → Spool → Driver repository and choose Add driver.
  2. Enter the Driver name exactly as Windows names the print driver.
  3. Optionally attach the driver package (.zip, .cab or .inf). Without a package the driver is registered by name only.
  4. Choose Add driver.
  • An uploaded package is stored in your own Azure storage account. The agent downloads it, checks it and stages it before installing the printer.
  • A driver registered by name only must already be installed on the machines.
  • A driver cannot be removed while a printer still uses it. Change or remove those printers first.
  • To fill the repository from discovery, turn on Auto-register discovered printer drivers in Settings → Configuration Matrix. It registers drivers by name only; Atlas never copies driver files from devices.

Discovered printers

Atlas Reach agents on Windows devices report the printers those devices already have, so you can bring them under management instead of typing them in. Discovery is Windows only. Software printers such as PDF, XPS, OneNote and Fax are skipped, and so are printers Atlas Spool already manages. You see them on two screens: the Discovered tab in Atlas Spool, and the Printers tab in Atlas Reach.

  • Statuses: Discovered, Ready to manage, Needs driver (its driver is not in your repository yet), Managed, Deployed and Ignored. Stale and Possible duplicate flag printers to review.
  • Open a printer to see the devices reporting it, its driver and connection details, and insights such as several names for one printer or an IP address change.
  • Ignore hides a printer from the list; Restore brings it back.
  • Local (USB) printers are listed but cannot be managed centrally.

Discovery pauses while Atlas Spool is turned off for the tenant or the subscription is not active. Printers already discovered are still shown.

Convert a discovered printer to a managed printer

Choose Convert to Managed on the Discovered tab, or Manage with Atlas Spool on Atlas Reach → Printers. Both open the Convert to managed printer wizard, filled in from what the agents found.

  1. Printer: confirm or correct the name and details.
  2. Connectivity: check the address, port, protocol and driver. If devices reach the printer through a print server, enter the printer's own IP address or host name instead. Pick the driver from your repository.
  3. Configuration: set the defaults users get, such as color mode, double-sided printing, paper size, tray and orientation.
  4. Deployment: choose where to deploy it. You can deploy to every device where it was discovered, add other targets, or add none for now.
  5. Review: check everything and choose Convert printer.
  • Printers convert one at a time. Even when you select several on Atlas Reach → Printers, each opens its own wizard, because each creates a billed managed printer.
  • Devices that already have the printer keep it: the agent takes over the existing printer instead of adding a second copy.

The Atlas Reach Printers tab

Atlas Reach → Printers is the inventory of every printer the agents found, with status, address, driver, connection type, the devices it was discovered on, location, and whether Atlas Spool manages it. Search, filter, export, or select printers for bulk actions.

  • Manage with Atlas Spool: start the conversion wizard.
  • Open in Atlas Spool: jump to a printer that is already managed.
  • Assign location: record where a printer is. The location is kept when agents report again, and is used when you convert the printer.

The device Print spool tab

In Atlas Reach, a Windows device's Print spool tab shows that device's printers and the jobs waiting in its queue, read live from the agent. You can cancel, pause, resume or restart a job, clear a printer's queue, and restart the Print Spooler, without opening a session. This is a live view of the device's own Windows spooler; Atlas does not store the jobs.

Let users add printers themselves

Set an assignment's Install mode to Self-service to offer a printer instead of installing it automatically. Users in the target then pick Add printers… from the Atlas Reach icon in their session's system tray.

  • It opens the Add printers page, listing the printers offered to that user on that machine. No Atlas sign-in is needed.
  • Users choose Add or Remove. Changes apply within a minute, or at the machine's next check (within 30 minutes) if the agent is not connected.
  • The page works for 30 minutes. To make more changes later, users choose Add printers… again.
  • If the assignment is removed, or the user leaves the group, the printer is removed at the next check.

Print usage reports

Turn on Collect print job metadata in the Settings Matrix (for every tenant, or one tenant) and the agent on each Windows session host reports each finished print job's details: who printed, on which printer and machine, when, how many pages and copies, color or black and white, duplex and paper size. The Usage tab shows them grouped by user, printer, session host, host pool or printer location. No document content is ever collected.

  • Off by default. While it is off, agents send nothing, and turning it on never collects jobs printed earlier.
  • Document names are kept only if you also turn on Keep print job document names, because a file name can itself be sensitive.
  • Set Cost per black-and-white page and Cost per color page to see a cost column, and Monthly page quota per user to flag users near or over their allowance. Quotas warn; they never stop anyone printing.
  • Print job retention (365 days by default) sets how long records are kept.
  • Export CSV downloads the individual jobs and needs spool.manage. Every view and export of the report is recorded in the audit log.
  • The user is the Windows account the print spooler recorded for the job.

Permissions

  • spool.view: see Atlas Spool, printers, assignments, rollout health and print usage.
  • spool.manage: add, edit and delete printers, drivers and assignments, convert discovered printers (including Manage with Atlas Spool from Atlas Reach), and export print usage.
  • reach.annotate: Assign location on Atlas Reach → Printers.
  • reach.control: the device Print spool tab.

Administrators have every permission. You can add spool.view and spool.manage to a custom role. See Role-Based Access Control.

Billing

Atlas Spool is an add-on on every plan, including the free Community plan. It uses Atlas units from your pooled monthly allowance: five units per managed printer, charged once, in the month the printer is created. A converted discovered printer counts the same as one you add by hand.

  • The five units are not returned if you delete the printer. Adding it again counts as a new printer.
  • Assigning a printer, the number of machines it reaches, the pages printed, and print usage reports cost nothing extra.
  • Discovered printers are free until you convert them.

To buy a plan or more units, use Choose a plan or Add units in the app. See What Is an Atlas Unit? for how the pooled allowance works.

Troubleshooting

  • A printer never appears: check that an assignment matches the machine's host pool, computer name, the user or one of their groups, then choose Refresh printers on the device and look for a Failed row in Rollout health.
  • It installs but cannot print: make sure the machine can reach the printer's address and port, and that the protocol and port match the printer (RAW on 9100, or LPR on 515).
  • Failed with a driver error: add the driver package to the Driver repository, or install the named driver on the machines.
  • Failed with a name conflict: a printer with the same name, which Atlas did not install, is already on the machine. Rename one of them.
  • A group assignment is missing: group membership is checked through Microsoft Graph. If Graph cannot be reached, host pool, host and user assignments still apply and group printers return once it recovers.

Next steps