The Installation Path Is Required When You Install Additional Print Drivers in Windows XP (311761)

SYMPTOMS

When you install additional printer drivers on your Windows XP-based computer to provide printer driver support for other operating systems, you may receive the following message:

Please provide a printer driver.

Type the path where the file is located, and then click OK.

You receive this message when you install drivers for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 (Alpha), Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition (IA64), Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), as well as Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 (Intel).

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because only user-mode (version 3) printer drivers for the Intel-based platform are included on the Windows XP CD-ROMs for the Intel versions of Windows XP. These drivers work only on Windows 2000 and Windows XP-based computers.

Printer drivers for the Alpha and Itanium (IA64) platforms, drivers for Windows 9x-based clients, and kernel-mode (version 2) drivers for Windows NT 4.0 are not included on the Windows XP Professional CD-ROM.

MORE INFORMATION

To install additional drivers, browse to a location on the local computer or on the network drive where the files are stored.

Additionally, if the driver is provided for Windows 98 Second Edition or Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5 (Intel), you can install them on the Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD-ROM in either the Printers\NT4\I386 or Printers\Win9x folders. This behavior is similar on computers that are running Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0.

For additional information about this behavior, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260107 Windows 2000 Professional Prompts for Server CD-ROM When You Add Printer Drivers for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 95/98

154291 Installing Cross Platform Print Drivers in Windows NT 4.0/2000

It is also important to note that it is often not really necessary to install cross platform printer drivers. In a home or small office environment with only a few computers, it is often easier to install the appropriate drivers locally on all computers, and then create local ports to print to the computer that shares the workgroup printer.