Remember the days when you could right click inside of the “Printers and Faxes” window and add an additional print driver? Me too, but those days are gone my friend. Apparently Microsoft fired the “good ideas” guy.

So you’ve got 32 bit Clients and a 64 bit Server sharing a printer huh? Are Clients prompting for the driver every time you try to connect…?

Follow these steps to resolve it:

1. First download both the 32 and 64 bit version of the EXACT SAME DRIVER, make sure they are exactly the same, (Lexmark 4600 and Lexmark 4600 XL are not the same,  make sure yours are the same)
2. Once both are extracted you can add them one of two ways

Method one: Installing them from the server

1. Open Server Manager
2. Click Roles
3. Add the Print and Document Services Role (really you say?  Yes really.)
4. After the Role finishes installing, click on Administrative Tools, and then Print Management
5. Inside Print Management, expand Print Servers
6. Right Click on the Print Server in question, and then Select Properties….
7. Click on the Drivers tab and then Click Add. Click Next. Check off both X64 and x86 Drivers, and Click Next. When prompted select the location for one or the other, and when prompted again, specify the location of the remaining driver.
8. Now Create a new printer, using the installed driver, and share it.

Method two: Installing the Drivers from the Client

1. Install and share the printer as you normally would on the 2008 server
2. From the client browse to the server using \\%servername%
3. Open the folder “Printers and Faxes” from the \\%servername% window
4. Right click on the empty white space and select “Server Properties”
5. Click on the Drivers tab and then Click Add. Click Next. When prompted select the location of the remaining driver.