The following section designed for developers to select the appropriate development environment for their project using the Black Ice printer drivers.
There are several Microsoft operating systems either 32 bit or 64 bit with subtle differences such as Windows 11/10/8/7 Windows Servers 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012 R2. On 64 bit OS you have to install a 64 bit printer driver. A 64 bit printer driver and application cannot be installed on 32 bit OS. Most user’s applications are still 32 bit and a 32 bit application can interface with both 32 bit printer drivers and 64 bit printer drivers. The application to control or interface with the printer driver are most likely still 32 bit, unless one to deal with exclusively 64 bit systems.
If one creates a universal interface for all of the MS operating system for both 32 bit and 64 bit platforms, the application should be a 32 bit application and one should use the 32 bit RTK (Resource Tool Kit). A 32 bit application can interact with both 32 bit and 64 bit printer drivers through the ActiveX control. One should use 32 bit ActiveX and 32 bit DLLs control even on 64 bit operating systems The 32 bit and 64 bit API are the same for every driver. The 32 bit applications that use ActiveX controls can change the 64 bit printer driver’s settings, using the 32 bit ActiveX controls.
if one developing exclusively for the 64 bit operating systems, the application should use 64 bit ActiveX control, and 64 bit DLLs.
For more detailed technical information please see:
For a 32 bit applications interfacing, integrated, or controlling the Black Ice printer drivers we would Recommend the following development system:
Windows 11/10/8/7 32 bit system.
Windows Visual Studio 2022/2019/2017/2015
Black Ice 32 bit RTK.(the RTK should be specific to your printer driver such as TIFF/Monochrome, Color, PDF, ColorPlus, EMF printer driver )
If the development system is a Windows 7 64 bit system, The Visual Studio compiler switch must be set x86 to generate 32 bit code.
The 32 bit RTK can be installed and the 32 bit ActiveX controls can be registered manually.
Please Note:
· 32 bit applications can only use 32 bit ActiveX controls, and 32 bit DLLs, 64 bit applications can only use 64 bit ActiveX controls, and 64 bit DLLs.
· Make sure that the proper build platform is selected (win32/x86/AnyCPU or x64) depending on the product (sample). (E.g., the 64 bit compiler is not installed with Visual Studio 2005 by default.)
Using Visual Studio 2005 and developing for x64 systems, the "X64 Compilers and Tools” is added to Visual Studio.