Print Director on ARM64 Windows laptops

This note covers ARM64-based Windows laptops (Snapdragon X, Surface Pro X and similar), where customers report difficulty getting Print Director working.

Short answer

The Print Director client (PDAgent and its tray client) and Resource Manager are fully supported on ARM64 Windows and have been tested on Windows 11 ARM64. They run through the operating system’s built-in app emulation. This includes Print Director deploying print queues to the laptop, both driverless configurations (Microsoft IPP Class Driver, no manufacturer driver) and manufacturer-driver configurations, provided the manufacturer publishes an ARM64 driver for that model.

The one thing that cannot work on an ARM64 laptop is installing a manufacturer driver for which no ARM64 version exists. That is the usual reason “it won’t work” on these devices, and it is a manufacturer limitation, not a Print Director one. In that case use a driverless queue or the server-managed / secure-release model, which does not install a manufacturer driver on the laptop at all.

Why the client runs but manufacturer drivers need an ARM64 version

• The Print Director client is a 32-bit application. Windows on ARM runs 32-bit Windows software through emulation, so the agent, its tray client, the database connectivity and Resource Manager all run normally.
• Print drivers are different. A printer driver is tied to the processor type and is loaded by the Windows print system directly (not through emulation). To install a manufacturer’s driver onto an ARM64 machine, an ARM64 version of that driver must exist. Where the manufacturer publishes one, Print Director deploys it normally (see below). Many printer manufacturers (including common Konica Minolta, HP and Lexmark models) do not yet publish ARM64 drivers for all models; where no ARM64 driver exists, no software can install a local queue for it. This is a manufacturer limitation, not a Print Director one. Driverless (IPP Class Driver) queue deployments have no such dependency and work on ARM64 as on any other machine.

Recommended setup for ARM64 laptops

Use Print Director’s secure print release path:

1. The user prints to a shared/pull-print queue using the standard Windows universal print driver (Microsoft IPP Class Driver). This is built into Windows on ARM and needs no manufacturer driver.
2. The job is held by Print Director and released at the device (by login, card or PIN) like any other secure-release job.

Because no manufacturer driver is installed on the laptop, the ARM64 driver gap above never comes into play. This is the same model used for locked-down and Windows Protected Print environments.

Practically, this usually means: point the ARM64 laptop at the existing Print Director release queue (or a Windows print-server queue) rather than deploying a per-machine driver to the laptop itself.

If you specifically need a local driver-based queue on the laptop

This is only possible when the printer manufacturer provides an ARM64 (Windows ARM64) driver for that model:

1. Confirm the manufacturer publishes an ARM64 driver package (INF) for the printer.
2. From Print Director 2.5.14, Resource Manager lets you create a driver configuration for the Windows ARM64 platform (choose it when adding a platform to a queue deployment, the same way you would for x64 or x86), and the agent installs into the correct ARM64 driver store. This path has been tested end-to-end on Windows 11 ARM64.
3. If the manufacturer only ships x86/x64 drivers, this route is not available; use a driverless queue configuration or the secure-release setup above instead.

What to ask when a customer reports “Print Director won’t work on the ARM laptop”

To point them at the right fix, find out which is actually failing:

• The client won’t install or start: this should work under emulation; capture the installer/service error and raise it with support (it is unlikely to be ARM-specific).
• No queues appear / a deployed queue fails to install: this is the driver-architecture limitation above. Move the laptop to the secure-release queue, or supply an ARM64 driver if one exists.
• Jobs print but don’t release / aren’t tracked: this is a configuration question on the release queue, not an ARM issue.

Server components on ARM64 Windows

The Print Director server is normally installed on x64 Windows, but it has also been tested on Windows 11 ARM64:

• PDServer is fully supported, with one exception: sending report exports that rely on the Crystal Reports runtime (scheduled report emailing) does not work, because no Crystal Reports runtime exists for ARM64. Everything else (held jobs, secure release, the web administration pages, agent communication) works as normal. The Konica Minolta integrated and Lexmark integrated embedded applications have both been tested against an ARM64-hosted PDServer and work as normal.
• PD Reports is not supported on ARM64, for the same reason: the Crystal Reports runtime is not supported on ARM64.
• Resource Manager and PDAgent are fully supported, as described above.

Support status

Print Director has been tested on Windows 11 ARM64. PDAgent (including queue deployment with driverless and ARM64 manufacturer-driver configurations) and Resource Manager are fully supported. PDServer is fully supported apart from Crystal Reports-based report exports, and PD Reports is not supported on ARM64 (no Crystal Reports runtime). Please flag any ARM64 deployments to Blue Swift so they can be tracked.

Print Director on ARM64 Windows laptops