Marti's blog

So it seems Canon couldn't be bothered writing a 64 bits driver for its MF5600 and MF5650 multifunction printer, even though Windows XP 64 bits already existed when the printer came out, and Vista arrived just 2 years later. That means that for anyone running Windows 64 bits, the printer is as good as a plain photocopier.

Printers models change all the time, but manufacturers usually stick to the same internals and protocol for a while. Now in the olden days of parallel port printing, there was no way for the driver to know what it was really driving, so if you couldn't find the exact driver you needed, you could just choose one for a slightly different model, install it and print happily. No such luck with USB: the driver knows exactly what is at the other end of the cable and will not install on the wrong printer.

So as it turns out, Canon has a 64 bit driver for the MF5700, which is pretty much the same thing as the MF5600. And of course the driver won't install. I however found out a workaround to keep printing : go to the Printer control panel, ask to install a new printer and choose the port "Print to file". When prompted for the driver, give Windows the location of the MF5700 64 bit drivers... the installation will go smoothly. Now go to the properties of the newly installed printer and change the port to the USB port you are using for your MF5600 driver. That's all ! The printer will still report as "non functionnal" on the device panel but printing works. You are still out of luck for scanning.

Why Canon hasn't bothered to write the 64 bits driver for the MF5600 series as well as the MF5700, given that it's pretty much the same thing, I don't know. I guess I'll not be buying another Canon printer next time.