Connect Windows 7 64bit to Shared Printer on XP or 2003
Scenario:
You have a printer attached to a Windows XP machine. It is shared.
You browse to \computernameprintername from your Windows 7 machine to connect the printer
Windows 7 complains that it can’t find the driver and won’t accept any driver you give it (or it is an old printer with no downloadable win7 driver).
Solution:
The 32bit driver name is different than the 64bit driver name. You will need to create a Local Port which will basically copy the print formated data to the xpmachine share.
Here’s the KB how to perform this task
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282842
on Windows 7
Add Printer
Local Printer
Add Local Port
\XPMACHINEprintersharename (Make the share name one word or you have to “” quote the whole thing)
Select the driver installed when you connected the device to USB
complete the wizard
print test page.