Scan Dog
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You have most likely heard the expression “hang dog” as in being down and out, but I am faced with “scan dog” this morning.
I would venture to guess that it has been over one year since I have had to use my Epson Perfection 1650 scanner, or for that matter the need to scan anything at all. I just don’t scan very much.
Mark my words… if you upgrade to Windows Vista and you have an older scanner in perfectly good working order, the chances are very good it will not have Vista drivers available. The other sure thing is that once you switch to Vista as your primary OS you will suddenly have the overwhelming need to scan. I believe this is referred to as “Murphy’s Law.”
If scanning is your life, check on the availability of Vista drivers for your scanner prior to upgrading to Vista. Chances are very good that you will need to add the cost of a new scanner to your budget. Once you have decided to purchase a new scanner, go to the manufacturer’s Web site and make absolutely sure that they have Vista drivers for that particular scanner or you may end up with two non-functioning scanners.
I am not making any judgments here, but it looks to me as though scanners have been lost in the shuffle of driver updates. Printers that were purchased in the same time frame as the scanner have drivers and are working normally.
Bottom line, if you have not scanned in years and years, something will come up shortly after your Vista upgrade that will require a scan… count on it! Be forewarned and thereby forearmed. For now, I am going to hook the Epson scanner up to my laptop running Windows XP and see what “develops.”
[tags]Connie Devine, windows, vista upgrade os, scanner, printer[/tags]
5 Comments
Chris Pirillo
March 14th, 2007
at 3:50pm
Did you see that I had to start using VMWare to get ‘er done?
Mac
March 15th, 2007
at 6:55am
Connie,
You might want to try VueScan, which you can download from:
http://www.hamrick.com/ It’s free to try before you buy.
Ken Moore
March 15th, 2007
at 5:52pm
I’m not so sure this is as much a driver issue as a way to sell new hardware. When upgrading from Win98 to XP, my old Umax scanner stopped working — Win 98 drivers would not work. The website was clear: Software to make the scanner work was NEW software that had to be purchased, and the only way to purchase it was to buy the latest Umax scanner.
I am getting really cynical about everything…
Joe Messman
March 16th, 2007
at 8:40am
I feel your pain. I purchased several of the scanner you mentioned for the businesses I support a couple of years ago with the guarantee that Epson would have a Vista driver for them. Now they tell me they have not intention of providing a driver for Vista. I guess I won’t be upgrading them to Vista for a few years in that case.
I see the same issue with modems and the like that are only a year old. At least they are inexpensive. (except for the my labor fee to install them)
Scan Dog II ~ Windows Fanatics
March 27th, 2007
at 7:47pm
[...] After my Scan Dog article ran in Windows Fanatics, I heard from some of you out there that were in the same boat as I was and had older Epson scanners that did not, and would NEVER have, drivers to use the scanner while using Windows Vista as the operating system. One comment that could potentially help many of you out there was sent to me by Lockergnome reader Doug McRae (Mac). He spoke to Epson and sent me the following: I downloaded the XP driver to my desktop in Vista and followed the directions from Epson (I’ll copy and paste the directions below my sig). It did error during the install, but Vista popped up a window about did I want to install in compatibility mode, and I clicked “yes,” and away it went. Vista warned me about the unsigned driver and I told it to go ahead anyway. After rebooting, I turned on the scanner and Vista told me it had found new hardware - an Epson Perfection 1200U Scanner - and proceeded to install the hardware. I opened the Vista Fax & Scan program (I have Vista Business Edition), put a document on the flatbed of the scanner, pressed the Scan button, and it scanned perfectly. I haven’t tried scanning any pictures, but I assume that if it will scan a doc properly, it should also handle pictures. [...]