Windows 7 Printing from 32 bit system to remote 64 bit system

jimbo45

New Member
Hi everyone
Hopefully this will save you some time as it's not obvious how to print say from a laptop running a 32 bit OS (XP, Windows 7 X-32) to a remote printer running 64 bit OS (Vista X-64, Windows 7 X-64). I spent a bit of time trying to find out how to make this work so I'm hoping this might be of use to people out there who have had the same problem.

Often in a home network you'll want to share a printer which may be attached to a desktop computer while you are using a laptop wirelessly in another room.

Normally when connecting to a remote printer the remote printer will try and install a driver on the clent (i.e the laptop etc running the 32 bit system).

This of course won't work if the remote computer is running a 64 bit OS or even a different OS to the client computer (you can't run x-64 bit software on a x-32 bit system) nor will installing the 32 bit driver work on the X64 bit system.

A bit of "Poodlefakery" here will work. What we actually do is make the X32 client system think that the hardware is attached to it rather than the remote system.

1) Set file and Printer sharing On and network to private (discoverable) so you can see other computers on it.

2) on your remote system ensure the printer is made SHARED and give it a simple share name like mainprinter

3) note the NETWORK NAME of your computer where the printer is connected to. Say it's called mserver. You should be able to see it in the Network map.

4) ensure the printer driver (X-32 bit version) is installed on your laptop / x-32 bit machine.

5) go into control panel and add printer.

6) select add LOCAL printer (yes I know your printer is on the REMOTE machine but we are trying to trick the X-32 machine that it actually has the printer). click NEXT

7) Create new LOCAL port and click NEXT

8) In the port name type \\computername\prntersharename
so in the example given above it will be \\mserver\mainprinter. Note this stuff is CASE SENSITIVE so use simple names.

9) now it will look for the drivers which should already be on your X-32 bit system. If you need to install from a disk then just follow the instructions.

10) you are ready to go --try printing a test page --voila it works.

Cheers
-Jimbo

(BTW it works in reverse as well Vista / W7 X64 printing say to a printer on Windows 2003 server or XP. Ensure however the 64 bit driver exists on the X-64 bit machine).
 
Last edited:
For some reason I am still unable to print. When I print from my labtop nothing prints until I restart the remote computer. I have windows on both the labtop and desktop. The desktop has 64bit and the labtop has 32 bit.

Please help!!!!
 
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