Symptoms

You are unable to select the option Print directly to the printer in the Advanced tab of the printer properties because it is greyed out.

Cause

Type 4 (V4) print drivers are normally XPS-based, meaning that they render the jobs in the PrintFilterPipelineSvc.exe process. The option Print directly to the printer renders the print job under the applicaton process, which is not possible for XPS-based print drivers.

Resolution

Resolution 1:

Change the driver to a Type 3 (V3) GDI-based print driver instead of an XPS-based print driver.

Resolution 2:

Configure the printer to use spooling.

See also

• Print directly to the printer setting doesn't work with XPS-based print drivers docs.microsoft.com