migrate win 2003 r2 print servers to windows 2012 r2

Because Microsoft changed the underlying print engine between 2003 and 2008 (XP/Vista as well), most drivers are not suitable. So migrating also means tracking down new drivers, and that simply isn't a process easily automated. Sorry for the bad news.

I agree with Cliff, the drivers aren't compatible.  But, you could use printbrm to migrate the print queues as Emmanuel suggested, you just need to skip exporting the drivers.

This page describes very briefly how you can use a custom XML file to force the new server to use "newdriver1" when "olddriver1" is found in the printbrm back up file:
http://ss64.com/nt/printbrm.html

This other page goes into a bit more detail. The key is exporting the old print queues using the "nobin" switch so no binaries (drivers) are copied over. Then, use the driver mapping XML file to import those printers on the new server using drivers already installed on the new server:
http://www.sysadminlab.net/windows/print-server-migration-using-printbrm-exe-also-without-drivers

You can run printbrm remotely on the server 2012 machine to export the print queues from the 2003 machine.   Here is MS's page on the printbrm command for Server 2012:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134237.aspx

I hope this helps.

If it's all HP Universal Driver Queues, you can get the HP PARK Printer Administration Resource Kit, which contains a easy to use script to migrate queues to another server with a different OS, it will write all queue specifics (not driver settings unfortunately) into a csv and then uses that to re-install the drivers on the target system with a new version of the HP UPD. My personal experience with printbrm is only half way pleasant when the target OS is the same.

PARK: http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?sp4ts.oid=4157320&swItemId=ds_99433_17&swEnvOid=4063

Nice post and nice tool