There may be differences between how the printer drivers work on different operating systems. This section lists the known issues, and will help you find the answers for why they work different.
Classes of the Printer Drivers
There are separate printer driver installs for 32 and 64 bit operating systems and the installs differ on NT based operating systems (Windows 11/10) and terminal servers (Windows Terminal Server 2025/2022/20192016/2012 R2). So if you want to install a printer driver, you should check your version of the operating system before running the install application. The latest operating systems (for example Vista or Windows 7) support only user-mode printer drivers due to security reasons. The XP and Terminal Server 2003/2008 support kernel-mode and user-mode printer drivers.
Start Application on x64
The Black Ice printers can start 32 and 64 bit programs as start applications on x64 operating systems. On 32 bit operating systems you can only start 32 bit applications, so you can set only 32 bit programs as the start application. NOTE: If you use Microsoft Windows Vista, and the UAC (User Account Control) is turned on, the start application program must be permitted. If your application is not permitted by the UAC, your application won’t start when you print.
Messaging Interface
If you use the Windows 11/10 operating system, you can only use the PIPE messaging interface for capturing messages from the printer driver. The WM_COPYDATA window message and other registered window messages won’t work on Windows 11/10 because of the following reasons: In Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and earlier versions of the Windows operating system, all services run in the same session as the first user who logs on to the console. This session is called Session 0. Running services and user applications together in Session 0 poses a security risk because services run at elevated privilege and therefore are targets for malicious agents who are looking for a means to elevate their own privilege level.
The Microsoft Windows Windows 11/10 operating system mitigates this security risk by isolating services in Session 0 and making Session 0 non-interactive. In Windows Windows 11/10 only system processes and services run in Session 0. The first user logs on to Session 1, and subsequent users log on to subsequent sessions. This means that services never run in the same session as users' applications and are therefore protected from attacks that originate in application code. Because of this the spooler service can’t use window message functions such as SendMessage and PostMessage to communicate with an application. So the PIPE message interface works only on Windows 11/10/8/7 operating system from the three Black Ice method.
For more information please see Messaging Interface section.