Computer Tips For Geeks » Printers

64 Bit Printer Drivers On 32 Bit Server

Nelson — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Most computers are shipped with 64-Bit Windows OS from manufactures now, so it is becoming necessary to add printing support for 64-bit operating systems on network print servers, because the 32-bit drivers won’t work on a 64-bit operating system. I assume your print server already have 32-bit drivers for 32-bit systems support, and you want to add 64-bit OS system support for the same printers.

first download the 64-bit drivers for the printer from the vendor website and save them in directory on your print server. then login go to the device and printers applet in control panel on you server. Right-click on the printer you want to add the 64-bit drivers, and select Printer Properties:

click on the Sharing tab, and then click on Change Sharing Options:

then click on Additional Drivers:

check the x64 checkbox and then click on OK:

the Install printer drivers window will come up. browse to where you downloaded the drivers from the vendor website. click on OK and the drivers should get installed. now the x64 driver should show up as installed.. and people should be able to print from that printer from 64-bit operating systems now.

Printer not printing document correctly

Nelson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:03:40 +0000

If you are printing a document from Microsoft word, excel etc, and all you get on the printed out document is a bunch of symbols and weird characters, then do the following:

the first thing you need to do is check if the printer driver is installed correctly by printing a test page. to do that, go to Start, and click on Printers and Faxes. the printers and faxes properties will come up:

right-click the faulty printer, and select properties then click on the Print Test Page tab:

If the test page comes out fine, then the printer is fine, you should concentrate on troubleshooting the application. If the test page does not come out fine, then it might be the driver on the printer. reinstalling the drivers might solve the problem.

if the application you are printing from is the problem, then try to change the font from what you currently have to another one. for example, if you created a word document using Cambria (Headings) try to change it to Calibri (Body)

try printing the doc again.

Installing Unrecognized Printers on Terminal Server

Nelson — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:55:00 +0000

Have you noticed that when you login to terminal server the local printers installed on your computer automatically get mapped on terminal server, and when you print something on terminal server it automatically print to your local printer? yes, is cool when terminal server recognizes the printers and everything works like magic, but when the printers don’t get recognized things don’t look so cool. people start wondering why, and of course they will request help. I’ve seen this normally happening when people buy new printers, and the printer happens to be an ALL in ONE piece of crap. to fix that problem you need to do a local printer installation on terminal server as you did on the local computer.

as you can see, I have a printer on my local computer called Dell Laser Printer 1100:

and assuming I login to terminal server I should be able to print to this printer from terminal server right? well, apparently not, it does not get recognized by terminal server, and to make it work I need to install it locally on terminal server too.

download the driver for the printer on terminal server and do a local installation using the exact same settings on your local printer. let’s say my printer use the IP address 192.168.30.50 you need to enter the same IP address on terminal server, and the same exact name Dell Laser Printer 1100. next time when you login to terminal server, the printer will bind to this installation and automatically route a print job to the local printer.

Automate Network Printers Installation with con2prt

Nelson — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:35:44 +0000

As the network grows larger the management of network printers becomes more cumbersome, or that’s the case in the company I’m working for. for that reason I took on the project to find a way to manage our network printers easier, and more efficient. what else can be more easier and efficient than a script? and for network printers installation, con2port is the guy for the job.

the first thing you need to do is to download the con2rpt.exe software from Microsoft “http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/6/0/260afc88-2253-45f8-9781-546cff07edd9/zak.exe” that includes a whole set of tools, but the file you need is in the t\i386\tools directory. copy the con2prt.exe program to your computer C:\ root, that will make the command line typing easier.

as you can see, I copied the con2prt.exe program to c:\tools directory. once you have done that, go to Start then RUN and type CMD and hit Enter. once at the command prompt, type the CD command and the name of the directory to switch to:

that command above, will switch from the C:\ directory to Tools directory where cont2prt program resides.

con2prt.exe is a very simple program with a few commands just enough to do the job we are looking for.

to delete all existing printer connections use the command Con2prt /F or to connect to a printer use the command con2prt \C and then the name of the printer you want to connect to. to make the printer the default use the command con2prt \CD and then the name of the printer you want to connect to.

for example to map a network printer name HRprinter on the print server named printserv, you will type the command: “con2prt \C \\printserv\HRprinter” to make the printer the default printer type the command: “con2prt \CD \\printserv\HRprinter”

as you can see, the use of con2prt is very useful but simple at the same time.

now to put the program in production, copy the con2prt program from your local computer to a network shared drive,and execute the commands using a batch file. for example, if the con2prt program is on a shared folder on the server called printserv\scripts the command you need to enter on the batch file will look like: “\\printserv\scripts\con2prt \C \\printserv\HRprinter”

then after you finish including all the printers on the batch file, set it up as a logon script to load printers automatically on all the computers on the network. by now you should have completed the automation of the network printers installation.