Running the Direct Print client as a Windows Service comes with the following benefits:
Only one instance of the client runs regardless of how many active user sessions there are on a given machine (this helps avoid certain issues such as duplicate prints).
The end user does not have access to the desktop app interface, which makes them less likely to break something.
It is possible to manage the client remotely through the client’s web API.
Running the client as a Windows Service has the following drawbacks:
The client runs as the
LocalSystemaccount, so it doesn’t use the default printer settings of regular users (check below how to resolve it).The end user does not have access to the desktop app interface, which makes it more difficult to provide support if something goes wrong.
We usually recommend installing the client as a desktop application. For multi-tenant machines we recommend installing and running the client as a Windows Service, to avoid duplicate prints.