Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Monday, May 14, 2007
Stunned, I tell you. After weeks of trying, I finally managed to hack up a scanner driver for Vista 64. The alternate was to buy VueScan, a piece of software that really isn't bad. But after shelling out $40 I still couldn't scan directly into an application. I had to open VueScan, scan to a file, then open the image editing app. I'd downloaded the trial version over the weekend, but wasn't going to buy unless I learned for sure that Epson wasn't going to release drivers. It beat paying $200 for the newer scanner. The new model has very similar specs, but with Vista 64 support. That's a lot of money for a device driver, don't you think? (Okay, the newer scanner supports the cool Digital ICE technology for cleaning up negatives. That could be handy, but I want to buy a scanner on my own terms, and not because I'm forced to do so.)
Long story short, I took the XP 64 scanner driver that I'd hacked up previously, figured out how to get it to work with USB via trial-and-error, and then selected the scanner from a list of scanners available rather than pointing to the location of the hacked-up .inf file.
I still don't know why that worked, but I am now a very happy camper. Watch out, Nostalgia section!
Tags:
Technology