I'm reading around and it seems that 32 bit drivers do not work under 64 bit windows. Is this true? since 32-bit applications can run under 64 bit windows it seems ridiculous that 32-bit printer drivers cannot. Are printer drivers run at the kernel level?
Sounds like we're in for driver hell for our RDP environments.
Best Answer
x64 versions of Windows do not support 32-bit kernel mode drivers. Microsoft's statements re: Vista are here (be sure to look at the errata at the bottom-- the article has a major mistake that it corrects), and the same is true for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.
There is no magic "switch" you can throw to allow 32-bit kernel mode drivers to work on an x64 kernel. They won't, period. (Yeah, yeah-- I suppose somebody could write some kind of ugly shimming system to make it possible, but nobody outside of Microsoft would have the necessary documentation to write such a thing... Besides, it's easier just to run a 32-bit OS under virtualization in a 64-bit host if you really need that...)
With respect to printer drivers, Easy Print is Microsoft's answer to the nightmare of client-side printer drivers in a Terminal Services environment, but you need Windows Server 2008 on the Terminal Server machine.