Sunday, March 24, 2013

Adding 32-bit print driver on 64-bit Windows

Recently I tried to add the 32-bit printer driver for our “FX Apeosport 550 I” multi-function printer on a Windows Server 2008 R2 print server (which is 64-bit) and encountered a small issue.

On the Sharing tab of the printer, I clicked on the Additional Drivers button.

01 Sharing Tab

On the Additional Drivers dialog box, I checked the x86 checkbox and click on the OK button.

02 Additional Drivers x86

I provided the path to the x86 print driver and clicked the OK button.

03 Install print drivers x86

I received the following error message.

Selected printer driver not found

The specified location does not contain the driver FX AP 550 I for the requested processor architecture.

04 Selected printer driver not found

This is caused by a name mismatch between the x86 and x64 print drivers.

The x64 print driver provided by Microsoft is named FX AP 550 I.

05 Driver Name

When I opened up the INF file (which is fx6naie.inf in this case) of the x86 print driver provided by FujiXerox.  The print driver name was FX ApeosPort 550 I PCL 6.

06 fx6naie_inf

The workaround is to rename all instances of FX ApeosPort 550 I PCL 6 to FX AP 550 I in the INF file and save it.

07 fx6naie_inf modified

After modifying the INF file, I am able to add the x86 driver successfully.

08 x86 driver installed

From the Drivers node, I can see both the x64 and x86 print drivers for the “FX Apeosport 550 I” multi-function printer

10 x86 driver

In case, you are prompted for ntprint.inf while trying to install the x86 driver, you can get it from a 32-bit Windows Server 2008 machine.  It is located in the %windir%\system32\driverstore\ntprint.inf_HHHHH folder.

Additional Information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952065

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