Solved How to install x86 printer drivers on x64?

[behindyouu]

Hello, I am making my old USB printer to a wireless printer. The only problem is that, all my other computers are x86 and my computer is x64. My printer is Brother HL-2140. I have tired download windows XP x86 drivers from brother website but it did not work.

 

[Berton]

Usually both versions of the software for printers come on the same disc, may even have the Macintosh software on it or on a separate disc. But you do have to have the correct version for the version of Windows, e.g. x86 for 32-bit computers and x64 for the 64-bit computers. You can't use 32-bit drivers for most hardware on 64-bit computers nor vice versa. If the printer is too old there may not be suitable drivers for Win7, have seen a number of times where folks getting a new computer couldn't use the old one, same with separate scanners. But one can find 3-in-1 printers sometimes for less than a replacement set of ink cartridges. The 4-in-1 units include a Fax function for the Dial-Up phone line.

 

[dsperber]

You can install TWO sets of drivers for your shared printer, one x64 and a second x86, hosted by your x64 machine.

When the other x86 network machines go through their "add printer" dialog and you navigate them to the shared printer hosted by your x64 machine, the x64 machine will send the x86 second driver to the x86 machine.

Right-click on your printer object on the x64 machine, select "printer properties" and select the "sharing" tab. Then push the "additional drivers" button to begin the wizard dialog to begin the install for the x86 drivers on your x64 machine where you already have x64 drivers installed.

With the x64 driver already currently installed (so its checkbox is already checked), check the currently unchecked x86 box and push the OK button to continue on. You will then point to the expanded folder in which the x86 driver files have been placed (i.e. on of the sub-folders contains the needed INF files for the x86 version of the drivers). Presumably you've downloaded the x86 driver installation file from Brother and either (1) expanded it, say with WINRAR, or (2) run it as if you were going to install it but instead you CANCEL after it self-expands. Once the driver installer file has been expanded, the needed INF files are now present in some sub-folder and will be automatically found by this "additional driver" process.

When this whole process is complete, you will now have TWO drivers installed on the x64 machine. The x64 drivers will be used when printing directly from the x64 machine, and the second x86 drivers will be delivered to any x86 machine during the "add printer" dialog from that machine t point to the shared printer hosted by your x64 machine.

Now when you print from an x86 machine, the x86 driver on that machine will be used but the rendering of the printed output will be on the x64 machine (to which the printer is connected) which really is doing the "hosting" of the printer available for shared printing needs by ALL computers on your network, both x64 and x86 thanks to installing both drivers on the x64 host machine.

 

[behindyouu]

thanks for the help.