Network printer queues not appearing in Printers & scanners on Windows 11

Hi Jay Choi,

Thank you for taking the time to test this thoroughly across multiple machines and isolating the exact culprit to KB5077181.

Finding the specific update causing the communication break between the legacy print spooler and the modern UI is incredibly helpful, not just for your users, but for the rest of the community dealing with this exact same headache.

For now, keeping that specific security update uninstalled and paused in your environment is definitely the right move until Microsoft releases a superseding patch that addresses the bug. I also highly recommend submitting a quick report through the Windows Feedback Hub (Win + F) mentioning KB5077181, as this helps the Windows engineering team track and resolve the issue faster.

Would you like me to provide the specific steps or scripts to systematically block or hide this specific KB update across your deployed PCs so it doesn't automatically reinstall overnight?

Tracy.

Hi Jay Choi,

Thank you for giving those steps a try and getting back to me. Since the UI cache reset didn't work, it strongly suggests that either the underlying Client Side Rendering (CSR) registry cache is corrupted, or this is a direct bug introduced by the recent update you mentioned.

Let's try clearing the CSR cache, which forces Windows to rebuild the network printer connection database from scratch for the modern UI.

Step 1: Clear the Client Side Rendering Print Provider Cache

1. Press Win + R, type services.msc, and press Enter.

Locate the Print Spooler service, right-click it, and select Stop.

Next, press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.

Navigate to the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider

Inside this folder, look for a subkey named Servers. Right-click the Servers folder and select Delete (or rename it to Servers_old if you prefer to keep a backup).

Go back to the Services window, right-click the Print Spooler, and select Start.

Close out of everything, restart the PC, and check if the printers now populate in the modern Settings app.

Step 2: Test Uninstalling the Recent Update Since you noted the issue started last week, it highly correlates with a recent Windows Update patch affecting how UWP apps read network devices.

Go to Settings > Windows Update > Update history > Uninstall updates.

Look for the most recent Cumulative Update installed right around the time the issue started.

Uninstall it, restart the PC, and check the Printers & scanners page.

If removing the update restores the visual list, then this is a confirmed bug with that specific KB patch. In that scenario, relying on the legacy Control Panel shortcut workaround we discussed earlier will be the best administrative approach until Microsoft issues a permanent hotfix.

Please let me know how these steps go or if you have any questions!

Hi Jay Choi,

I just wanted to follow up and see if you had a chance to try the troubleshooting steps provided above. Did restarting the Device Association Service or re-registering the Settings app help resolve the issue with the printer queues not displaying? Please let me know if the problem persists, or if you need any further assistance or clarification on the workarounds.

Tracy.

Hi Jay Choi,

Your observation that the printers are perfectly visible in the legacy "Devices and Printers" panel but missing from the modern "Printers & scanners" page is highly accurate. This confirms that your print queues, Group Policy deployments, and the local Print Spooler are actually function in normally. When you encounter this specific discrepancy, it indicates a communication breakdown between the legacy Win32 print subsystem and the modern Windows 11 Settings app (which is a UWP application). A recent Windows Cumulative Update released last week has introduced a bug that disrupts the modern UI's device enumeration cache. Because of this, the Settings app fails to read the underlying spooler database to render the network printers visually, even though they are successfully installed on the system.

To resolve this issue and force the modern interface to resynchronize, you or your system administrators can perform the following actions:

First, the modern Settings app relies on specific background services to enumerate connected devices. Open an elevated Command Prompt on an affected machine and restart the Device Association Service to force a refresh by running the following commands:

net stop DeviceAssociationService

net start DeviceAssociationService

Second, if the UI cache remains stuck, you can re-register the modern Settings application to clear its corrupted state. Open PowerShell as an Administrator and execute this command:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name windows.immersivecontrolpanel | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml" -Verbose}

As an immediate administrative workaround while waiting, you can deploy a desktop shortcut via GPO that points directly to the reliable legacy Control Panel. This ensures your users can still view and manage their network printers without disruption. The target path for the shortcut is:

explorer.exe shell:::{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

I hope this answer provided you with useful information. If so, please click "Accept Answer". If you have any questions, do not hesitate to leave a comment.

Tracy.