Windows 7 does not have the correct printer driver installed

That's the problem I have with ANY printer that only has 32bit drivers. There's a solution to getting the drivers installed on the 64bit server. Which makes no sense! The only way to add a printer on 64bit is with a 64bit print driver. The 32bit drivers are never used on the 64bit server other than to hand them off to 32bit clients requesting a connection to the shared driver. Use a compatible driver for the device that has 64bit and 32bit software available.

I found a reply of yours from 2 years ago on this subject where you said "if there are no x64 drivers for the devices, you can not add a queue for the device on the x64 print server". Which finally answered my question. A little later I found in a couple forums where people were saying they had good luck using Vista 64bit printer drivers for Windows 7 clients, where there was no 64bit Windows driver from the manufacturer. And so far that has solved my problem.

Not that it's going to do any good to complain about it but, I find it appalling that Microsoft created this situation. People will be using older printers for years to come. Why not support them. And the thing that I find the most surprising in all this is; you CAN load 32bit drivers on a 64bit server.

You just can't use them, provided there is no 64bit driver. Why make it possible to load them if you can't use them? That's just a rhetorical question. MS does not write any software for vendor printer hardware, the company who builds the device is the party responsible for supporting your current device in future versions of the operating system.

The print system never uses the 32bit drivers even for 32bit applications, the 64bit drivers are loaded by the spooler process. Sorry I personally don't have any Fax answers but there are other people in this forum that do. How come everything work on Windows 7 32bit platform, even when the 32bit driver doesn't exist on the R2 server? Why is this not working on XP? Windows 7 will search Windows Update for a matching driver and pull from that resource before stating the server does not have the driver.

It's also possible that Xerox installs the 32bit driver package when installing the 64bit package and since the Windows7 machine understands package aware print drivers, it can install the 32bit binaries from the package you installed from Xerox.

XP will use preinstalled drivers if they exist on the client machine but only knows how to get the drivers from the server if the driver is not available locally. FYI for the Xerox printer driver, I have used Windows Update to install the print driver, at this point it doesn't ask if I want to install a 32 bit or 64 bit driver. I'm trying to add more driver, and what a pain!!! Why is this so complicated to add a 32bit print driver on a 64 bit server platform???

Now when I try to install a Xerox 64 bit driver everything goes well, When I try to install the 32 bit version of the same driver, it required a file named ntprint.

Windows Update determines your OS version and platform and will only offer drivers for that one. Since the 64bit driver is in WU, so is the 32bit. This absolutely explains where the Win7 machines are pull the driver from.

Once you have the 32bit version of ntprint. Just install any driver included in Windows 7 32bit to the server before you attempt to add the vendor driver. How do I do this? Hi John,. I've been banging my head on the exact same wall for the past few weeks. I too was able to get the bit driver loaded, but the newly installed driver wouldn't come up in the driver list. I was hoping there might be some sort of system policy which could be changed to allow bit unsigned drivers to be displayed on the list, but so far I've not found anything of help.

This whole thing really isn't very 'green' of the manufacturers Good luck on your quest to get this ridiculous problem resolved. If you want to add 32 bit drivers to 64 bit Print Server You must use pnputil to upload drivers to the system like for 64 bit drivers and finally You must use 32bit Powershell Add-PrinterDriver — from this level enabling 32bit drivers is possible on 64bit system. How to start 32bit version of Powershell? I testted this procedure with about drivers 64bit and 32bit and it works perfectly.

Do you know which updates were installed? There is a document available here to identify and solve blinking lights. I have not checked as of today since I was trying to print a picture at am this morning.

I do know there were pacthes to be install over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I work at Intel PC services and we see it all teh time where a patch gets pushed out and it effects either printing or VPN,. The printer is hooked up by USB. When I installed a clean instal of WIN 7 it had a driver for the printer and it was working fine, now the only thing that has changed was patches. I tried installing the drive from HP web site but no luck.

I was hoping there was a quick fix out there that others are having. I work on PC all day long and not much for going home and working on one agian. Didn't find what you were looking for? Ask the community. Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. Showing results for. Search instead for. Did you mean:. Need Windows 11 help?

Check documents and videos on compatibility, FAQs, upgrade information and available fixes. Windows 11 Support Center. Create an account on the HP Community to personalize your profile and ask a question. Your account also allows you to connect with HP support faster, access a personal dashboard to manage all of your devices in one place, view warranty information, case status and more.

It has been a while since anyone has replied. Simply ask a new question if you would like to start the discussion again. We would like to share some of the most frequently asked questions about Instant Ink. All forum topics Previous Topic Next Topic. Level 8. Message 1 of HP Recommended. We have found through testing that this fix works. How to fix it Disconnect the printer if it is connected using a usb cable. Click on the icon and select All Programs. Select the HP folder , then select the printer and select Uninstall Once the uninstall is complete select Devices and Printers Click on another printer or the Microsoft XPS Document Writer Click on Printer server properties in the top menu Choose Drivers in the Installed printer drivers select the printer that was uninstalled in step 3.

Click on Remove and when asked choose Remove driver and driver package and click on ok. One thing i did see though is that these drivers on the server are v4. From what i have been reading there are some issues with Windows 7 and the server downloading drivers to clients. Why does 2 windows 7 machines map to the printer on the server and use the MS PnP driver when others just error out?

LaserValley Technologies is an IT service provider. Why step back to PCL5? I have tested on a Windows 10 laptop and the printers map perfectly. Do i just need to change the drivers to v3? Also make sure the print server has both the x86 and x64 driver installed so either one can be pulled. Thank you for the info. This is the first time I have come across v4 drivers. I am happy to hear its not just me, I have been pulling my hair out reading all these different scenarios but no one came out and just said how to fix it.

I am going to get the PCL5 driver for the printers I have been testing with and see about adding the additional drivers to the printers then set the PCL5 as the driver for the printer and then reshare the printer from the server. The 'one driver to rule them all' is a good concept, but until Sauron takes over HP's printer division this is far from reality and HP's UPD is far from a one shot solution.

HP would of course love you to replace legacy lasers with newer printers just to be compatible with their UPD because we all know it's all about making IT's job easier. I have 80 hp printers 6 models and mfp's across 6 campuses and only 2 models needed model specific drivers. Everything else is using the pcl6 UPD. This makes the setup,maintenance, and upgrades super easy. It also provides a consistent interface for my users.

Roughly 6 years ago, printer driver development at HP was rolled into one division so even if you are installing a discrete driver the core DLLs are identical to the UPD. Besides, current UPD supports printers back as far as any business should still be trying to maintain.