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Windows printer drivers

A

Atheus

Diamond Member
I have flakey printer drivers. That isn't the point of this post but it's related.

The point is - why does windows make you install a printer driver for a 'network printer' attached via USB to a different computer? Surely you could just send the document in the form of the original file to the host PC which would then format it for the printer. Does this strike anyone else as stupid? Maybe I'm missing something...


 
Yeah, it is kind of weird. I guess it offloads the CPU to your PC instead of the printer owner's CPU, so maybe for convenience purposes. Therefore it needs drivers to do the work.
 
You can't send a document because the program that turns a document into printer commands (e.g. MS Word) is on _your_ computer not on the other one
 
How do you propose you select all of the printing options which are specific to the printer if you didn't have to install the drivers on your computer?
 
I would also guess security is an issue. You wouldn't want a remote file being executed on your computer, which could take advantage of buffer overflows and run malicious code without you even knowing it.
 
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