Have you noticed that your default printer keeps changing? Windows has a new feature. It configures your printers to use the latest or most used printer to be your default – “for you”.  There are times where letting your most used printer may be nice but if you are wanting to select a default printer that will come up first every time, then here is how to do that.


Techy stuff: Starting in Windows 10 version 1511 there is an option to “Let Windows manage my default printer”. When this is set to the default then Windows 10 will always configure the default printer to be the most recent-used printer.


Go to your search area in the lower left-hand corner of your screen and type in Printers & Scanners. You can also navigate to it by going to Windows Settings -> select Devices -> select Printers & Scanners. Scroll to the bottom and Unselect this option to “Let Windows manage my default printer” 


screenshot: Let Windows manage my default printer checkbox

 

Bonus tip: Printers & Scanners settings provide only basic printer controls: You can add new printers here, but there’s little in the way of printer configuration. But the legacy Devices and Printers control panel that’s been available for the past several Windows versions is still in Windows 10, and it provides much more control over printers. You can access this by selecting the link “Devices and Printers” in Devices, Settings, or via Start Search.