Installing an additional x86 printer driver after a x64 driver is installed on a print server throws the error: “The specified location does not contain the driver <printer name> for the requested processor architecture.”

Problem

You’re migrating an old Windows Server 2003 print server to Windows Server 2008 R2 and have decided to build new and manually install the printer drivers as the old Print Migration Tool is not recommended for 2003 to 2008 R2 migration.  The x64 driver installs successfully onto the serer and you are able to send jobs to the printer without any issues but as you attempt to add an additional x86 printer driver after a x64 driver is installed:

You receive the following error:

The specified location does not contain the driver <printer name> for the requested processor architecture.

You attempt to use Server Manager to add the driver but receive the same errors:

Solution

After fiddling around with multiple ways of adding drivers without any success, I realized that the reason why the following HP LaserJet M3035 mfp PCL6 x86 driver wouldn’t install:

… is because I had used the HP Universal Printing PCL 6 driver for the original x64 install on the Windows Server 2008 R2 server:

Once I made sure the x86 driver I used was the same as the x64, the driver finally installed: