Why Does the Print$ Share Exist on Some Servers and How Do I Disable It

Question

I am trying to cleanup my server file shares on all of my Windows Server 2012R2 servers. About half of my servers have a print$ share even though they do not share any printers (only 2 of my servers legitimately share printers). Why does this share appear on some but not others and how do I go about disabling it without disabling file sharing as well? All the solutions I have found involve disabling File and Printer Sharing or disabling all the admin shares (C$, D$, ADMIN$, etc.) - neither of which I want to do.

Solution

The print share is a base feature of the File and Print services. Windows does not separate those roles, so you get print$ shares on all file servers. If you open "Computer management" on the server, not server manager, there is a share management that may allow you to remove the print share, but this sounds like a bad idea to me. This puts you into non-standard and possible unsupported configuration.

Comments

[Caynadian]

But all of my file servers have shared folders and only about half have the print$ share? There must be something that dictates when the print$ share is created.

[joeqwerty]

If a printer is installed on a server then Windows will create the default hidden $print share. Disabling or deleting it doesn't make your servers more secure. Best practice would dictate that you leave the default shares alone.