Microsoft published a summary of various solutions we can use to manage the new behavior.
Specifically:
Install print drivers when the new default setting is enforced
If you set RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators as not defined
or to 1, depending on your environment, users must use one of the
following methods to install printers:
Provide an administrator username and password when prompted for credentials when attempting to install a printer driver.
Include the necessary printer drivers in the OS image.
Use Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, or an equivalent tool to remotely install printer drivers.
Temporarily set RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators to 0 to install printer drivers.
[...]
Important There is no combination of mitigations that is equivalent to setting RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators to 1.
[...]
I recommend you to deploy the printer drivers to your computers, then, remove all deployed Point and Print Group Policies and Package Point and Print Group Policies, as they are not required anymore, and do not set the RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators
registry value because this will allow a vulnerability on your clients/servers.
Don't forget that each Windows device where the Print Spooler is enabled is vulnerable if you set the RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators
registry value to 0
, it's not about the Print Servers only, clients computers and other Windows servers are impacted too!
Be aware that there is another vulnerability in the Print Spooler at the moment, patch is still pending:
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2021-36958
Disabling the Print Spooler wherever possible is a good rule of thumb...