Can't get my network printer working on Vista x64.

GSDog · 1 Jan 2009 at 22:02

Hi all.

I built a new PC recently with Vista x64 Home premium and I can't seem to add my printer which is attached to a Windows XP 32bit PC on my network.

The printer is a Canon Pixma IP8500. I had to plug it in directly to my new Vista machine to install the correct drivers and it works fine when the printer is connected directly but I can't seem to get it working through the network.

I go to Control panel > Printers > Add a printer > Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer and I can see the Canon IP8500 through the network, but when I click Next to install it I get this message;

I'm guessing it's something to do with the fact that the printer is plugged into an XP 32bit machine and it's trying to install the wrong driver?
The driver is already installed on my Vista machine though so how do I stop it from trying to install the XP 32bit driver? :confused:

philjohn · 2 Jan 2009 at 11:10

You'll need a 64bit driver for that printer for this to work - if none is available your options are limited. I ended up plugging our Canon LBP-5000 colour laser into my mac mini and using the x64 version of bonjour to do printer sharing in the end.

The message you are getting is because printer sharing allows the automagic installing of drivers if they are available on the host machine.

GSDog · 2 Jan 2009 at 15:00

philjohn said:
You'll need a 64bit driver for that printer for this to work - if none is available your options are limited. I ended up plugging our Canon LBP-5000 colour laser into my mac mini and using the x64 version of bonjour to do printer sharing in the end.

The message you are getting is because printer sharing allows the automagic installing of drivers if they are available on the host machine.

I can get Vista to install a driver (which I guess is 64bit) when I plug the printer directly into the Vista machine, so I don't understand why it won't work over the network but works perfectly OK directly.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 2 Jan 2009 at 15:56

GSDog said:
I can get Vista to install a driver (which I guess is 64bit) when I plug the printer directly into the Vista machine, so I don't understand why it won't work over the network but works perfectly OK directly.

Because when you try and do it over the network the vista machine is trying to use the WinXP 32bit driver for the printer.

GSDog · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:02

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Because when you try and do it over the network the vista machine is trying to use the WinXP 32bit driver for the printer.

That is what I thought. How do I get it to work then? I can't install the x64 driver on the XP machine... :confused:

IAmATeaf · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:07

Not too sure if this will work but create a folder called x64 in c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers on the XP machine and copy the drivers into that folder and see if you get any joy

Scottland · 2 Jan 2009 at 20:11

If you right click in the Printers folder and select server properties, there is a driver tab there where you can add an additional driver package.

For epson drivers, you'll have to extract the driver package into a folder so it'll install the drivers from there. Also in my experience you need to remove all the driver *.inf files pertaining to different languages (other than the on that is 'EN') as for some reason it seems to pick a language at random.