Bonjour + Airport Extreme + Brother printer + Vista = ???

[derFunkenstein]

I can't decide where this goes. It's Apple-specific software, so here it be. I have a setup like so:

Airport Extreme N
USB 2.0 hub -> WD 640GB Hard drive + Brother HL-2140 laser printer.

Mac OS X: Can print, can see the disk, has been backing up for Time Machine
XP: Can print, can see the disk
Vista and Win 7 RC (both 64-bit): Can see the disk, can install the printer but cannot print

So I know the printer works, and I know that Bonjour works, but I cannot for the life of me get Vista or Win7 64 to print. I can send a test page and it goes to the queue but eventually ends up erroring out. Same with printing an actual page out of, say, IE8 or Firefox.

So I can't decide: is it Brother's 64-bit drivers? Or is it Bonjour on 64-bit?

[tanker27]

Its a known bug on Vista 64 that has carried over to Windows 7, just google it.

It has something to do with the Spooler functions.

I stop and restart the spooler on my vista 64 PC quite frequently. Others reinstall the drivers, etc. etc. Nobody has been able to nail down the exact resolution but all are in agreement that it is a Vista 64 OS issue.


for reading: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums ... bef6f3147/

[derFunkenstein]

Thanks tanker. I'll check that stuff out when I get home.

I also did a bit of googling and found that apparently (at least at one time) there is/was a separate 64-bit version of Bonjour (build 1.0.104, according to the installer). I'm going to give that a shot as well.

I also neglected to mention that the printer works fine if I plug it into my computer directly. I had resolved myself to just do that if I needed to print, but I'd much rather leave it plugged into the AEBS.

[derFunkenstein]

Yep, it was Bonjour 32-bit. I removed it and installed Bonjour 64-bit, removed the printer and reinstalled, and successfully got a test page.

So if you use Bonjour, make sure it's the right version. Even when you visit using 64-bit IE, it still defaults to the 32-bit Bonjour download for some reason.

Get the 64-bit version from here: http://developer.apple.com/networking/bonjour/download/