Posted by Jordan Lindsey
Microsoft has ended support for 2003 servers, which means there is a good chance that your 32-bit print server is no longer supported. If you’re like many organizations, though, there’s a chance that the only reason you’re still running 32-bit 2008 R2 or 2012 (R2) servers is because you have one or two programs that can’t run in 64-bit.
So let’s take a quick look at what obstacles you’d need to overcome to migrate from 32-bit to 64-bit. And while we’re at it, let’s explore the possibility of eliminating any unwanted servers.
Microsoft offers a few different migration tools (which are not very user friendly), and the manual process for migration is not easy. Microsoft currently allows you to add additional drivers to any printer. So once you have all your printers setup and assigned with 64-bit drivers, you can also add and select ‘additional driver’ within the sharing of a printer. This will allow you to have both a 32-bit and 64-bit driver assigned to a printer residing on a 64-bit server.
Now, if you only have 10 printers, this is not so bad of a task. But what if you have 100, 200, or 3,000 printers? It becomes an incredibly difficult, time-consuming task.
Microsoft does also offer a migration tool that you can try using. Now let’s be honest, who is going to guess that this is going to be smooth or easy to use? This is a tool designed specifically for migrating from one server to another. You still have to get all your 32-bit and 64-bit drivers assigned to each printer manually, though.
There is another solution…PrinterLogic’s enterprise print management solution. PrinterLogic is a web-based print management tool that allows you to connect to all print servers, 32 and 64 bit, and copy all your printers and drivers into one centralized location for management of the entire printing environment. All of the print servers can be decommissioned and shut off. You will never deal with 32 and 64-bit printing issues again, and you can help save your company money by eliminating hardware and dramatically reducing management and support costs.
If you’d like to learn more about PrinterLogic and how it can help you in your enterprise printing environment, reach out to our team and schedule a live demo of the software and get your hands on a free 30 day trial.