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Here at work, we're starting to contemplate the implications of switching from windows XP to windows 7. We have thin clients using XP embedded and Citrix metaframe 4.5 that print to network printers (Konica Minolta's and HP's) and Desktop/Laptop users on XP. We also would like to start moving the servers to Windows 2008 R2, currently we use Windows 2003 r2 and Windows 2008 sp1. The main issue is some of the Windows 7 users would likely be on 64-bit for various reasons, and so we would need 2 copies of the print driver for both 32-bit and 64-bit clients. It seems the only way to install 32bit drivers on windows server 2008 r2 is through some odd remote install process and the name has to match the 64-bit version.

So far we've considered, trying to use the HP universal print driver for PCL 5 or manually installing 2 different drivers for every printer from clients that need it (nightmare)...Am I way off base with this issue? Am I missing a far more obvious solution?

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Unless I misundertand you, you should be able to add all necessary printer drivers on the server without issue. Open the Printers folder on the server, right-click an empty area in the explorer window (or use the "File" menu) then select "Run as Administrator" => "Server Properties."

There will be a "Drivers" tab; from there you can add additional printer drivers - you will see it indeed shows the processor for each driver installed. In this way you can install x86, x64, etc drivers and when a client connects to the printer, the appropriate drivers will be installed automatically on the client. This feature is called "Point and Print."

Mark Sowul
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I know that we were using a x64 Citrix server for a while then moved it back to x86 because it was a hassle trying to find 64 bit drivers for all the printers we were using. Now saying that I don't believe that the client operating system matters because x86 clients connected to that server all the time and they never had an issue with printing through the x64 Citrix server.

I believe it all depends on the server side, if you are using a mix of x86 and x64 servers then you will need both versions of the driver. When I say both version I mean on the x64, install x64 drivers, on the x86, install x86 drivers. But you do not need to install an x86 driver on a x64 server for Presentation Server.