Why no 64 bit scanner drivers?

[Nocandu]

Why don't companies like Cannon, Epson, and HP make 64 bit drivers available for their scanners.
This really makes me mad!

Back when I changed from Windows 98 to XP I had an expensive HP large format scanner. HP didn't make any drivers available for it that would work in XP. I had to go out and buy a new scanner. I bought a Epson in protest.

Now I have an Epson 1650 Photo and there are no drivers for Windows 7 64 bit.
I'm even having trouble finding a new scanner that supports Windows 7 64 bit to replace the one I have.

What's so hard about suppling drivers?
Everyone I know who has a new Windows 7 computer has a 64 bit operating system. With everyone having 4 or more gigabytes of ram (I have 8) it's almost mandatory.

Does anyone know of a letter size scanner in the under $250 price range that supports Windows 7 64 bit?

Mike

 

[cmeagan656]

Look at the Epson NX Series. I purchased an NX315 3-in-1 (printer/scanner/copier and I couldn't be happier. It is very easy to set-up. You may have to d/l the 65-bit driver from Epson's web site if the device was packed and shipped before the final version of the 64-bit driver was finalized but the instructions are very simple.

Since the Epson Perfection 1650 was produced circa 2001 I can see why Epson is no longer supporting it. Their last driver update was for Vista 32-bit.

You could also look at Brother brands. A friend of mine purchased one but I'm not sure if it was for a 32-bit or 64-bit system.

Also the Epson Perfection V500 Photo is listed with an estimated price of $214.99 but is only available through retailers like London Drugs and Future Shop at the moment.

For a complete list of Epson scanners see:

http://epson.ca/cgi-bin/ceStore/ProductCategory.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=-8172

No, I'm not an Epson employee or stockholder, I just like their products.

Hope this helps.

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[paparazi]

Yup, I know what you mean.....just had to retire my Epson 640U and by the new Epson V300 photo for the same reason.
At least I have the bonus of a neg/pos film/slide carrier.
Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[Nocandu]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the suggestions.

I did solve my problem for now anyway.

I will probably buy a new scanner one of these days but while searching for a solution online I found a software package that will run almost any scanner 64 bit or otherwise.

The program is called "ViewScan" and it works fine.

It instantly recognized my scanner the second that I turned it on, and was ready to go in just a few minutes.

And I was able to try it out for free and see that it worked before I made the purchase.

It scans the image directly into Photoshop (in my case) and has a full complement of settings for color, resolution, etc.

So if anyone else who reads this is having the same problem check this out.

http://www.hamrick.com/

It was a lot cheaper then buying a new scanner.
It also makes me wonder why the manufacturers can't make software that will run any of their scanners.
Could it just be that they want to sell us a new scanner?

Mike

 

[danomac]

Seeing as this is a hardware forum that's not tied to any specific operating system, I'll put in my two bits:

I have an old HP Scanner, a Scanjet 2300c if I remember right. When I got my new computer with Vista Ultimate x64, I found out that the scanner was unsupported. It installed a stub driver, but I never tried using it.

I dual boot linux and am in linux 99.9% of the time my computer is on. It hasn't given me a problem since I got the scanner back then (I made sure it was on a compatibility list before I got it.) I've since upgraded the distribution several times (I don't use Ubuntu, I use one that has a rolling version) and never had a problem like this.

For all the headaches my linux install can cause me at times (learned quickly that you don't blindly upgrade stuff in a rolling distribution), it sure is good knowing that my ~10 year old hardware still works with it.

Mike brings up a point asking why manufacturers can't make software to run any/all scanners. Linux has basically done this since day one. I still remember how I had to have drivers from Manufacturer X for a generic sound card chipset to work in Windows, and how linux would see the chipset it uses and use the generic driver for it. It's not all without problems, but it definitely can be made to work.

You might want to set up a linux install such as Ubuntu on a thumb drive to mess around with old hardware, or get a live cd to try it out. The thing with linux is shiny new hardware may not necessarily have support right away unless the manufacturer supports it directly. My full-time transition from Windows -> linux back in 2002/2003 was reasonably smooth as I don't use any specialized Windows software.

 

[Nelviticus]

I was asking myself this very question at the weekend. When I upgraded from 32-bit XP to 64-bit Win7 I did it by putting Win7 on a separate partition and dual-booting. Now, the only reason I still keep the XP partition is because there are no 64-bit Win7 drivers for my scanner.

Why don't the manufacturers produce these drivers? Partly because it costs money to write drivers and partly because if they don't people will eventually buy new scanners.

I can't moan too much as when I bought my scanner it supported the OS I had at the time and the box never claimed that it would support anything I upgraded to in the future. It'd be a bit like moving house then complaining to Ford that my old car didn't fit on my new driveway.

Nelviticus

 

[Nocandu]

The thing that bugs me is that it obviously isn't necessary to write different drivers for every scanner. The software that I bought apparently will run virtually any brand of scanner, 32 or 64 bit in Windows 7, XP, or whatever.

So why don’t the manufacturers supply software to run their older scanners.
Other then the obvious reason of forcing everyone to buy a new scanner.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised this seems to be the way that everything works.
I would like to buy a new scanner when they come out with one that offers something new that I want or my old one quits working. Obviously I don’t mean stuff that is 20 years old the technology would be out of date anyway but my scanner is only about 5 years old.

The one I have works fine and does what I need so I don’t need a new one right now.

Well I guess they have created a business for the ViewScan people on the bright side.

Mike

 

[mscallisto]

I've been using Ed Hamrick's VuePrint for at least 15 years and have been very happy with this product.

I haven't used VueScan but I hope it works as well as VuePrint.

sam

 

[xwb]

Just a thought: if you run an 32-bit XP virtual machine using virtual PC or VMWare on a 64-bit machine, would it use the correct drivers? I don't a 64-bit machine to try this on.

I had an old scanner which 32-bit Vista wasn't picking up but when I started up a 32-bit XP VM, it picked up the scanner and I could actually use it. Then I tried W98 VMs for stuff that only had 98 drivers and that worked as well. Only thing is that is was 32 to 32: not 64 to 32. Might be worth a try. If it doesn't work, just blow away the VM.

 

[Nelviticus]

Doing it in a virtual machine does work because I tried it with XP Mode and I could scan in my virtual 32-bit XP. The main problem was that I had to attach the scanner to the VM every time I wanted to use it - I think Windows Virtual PC does let you permanently attach USB devices to a VM, but that doesn't seem to work if the host (64-bit Win7) doesn't have its own driver for the device.

It's also quite a faff getting the scanned images off the virtual machine - it's do-able but it's actually less hassle to re-boot into 'real' XP, particularly if you have a lot of things to scan.

I had a look at VueScan but for my model it needs the drivers to be installed first, so no luck there

Thank for the link though.

Nelviticus

 

[BadBigBen]

Epson Perfection 1650 PHOTO Scanner Support Drivers & Downloads FAQs for this Product Documents & Manuals Contact Support

Selected FAQ

Q: Does Epson have Microsoft Vista 64-bit drivers available for my scanner?

A: Currently, we do not have Microsoft Vista 64-bit drivers available for your scanner. However, you may be able to use the VueScan software from Hamrick; it supports Microsoft Vista 64-bit. Please visit the Hamrick web site for more information.

http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

Commercial website!!!

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Nocandu]

Hi Ben

Yes, I found a link that led to that FAQ on an Adobe forum.
That's how I got to the software I'm using.

Mike

 

[kmcferrin]

Mike brings up a point asking why manufacturers can't make software to run any/all scanners. Linux has basically done this since day one. I still remember how I had to have drivers from Manufacturer X for a generic sound card chipset to work in Windows, and how linux would see the chipset it uses and use the generic driver for it. It's not all without problems, but it definitely can be made to work.

Actually, the Linux community has done this since day one. Linux isn't an entity, and the driver development hasn't necessarily been motivated by profit. But the flip side of that is that once the driver has been released as open source it's fairly trivial to port it to all of the various distributions. And for that matter, if someone finds a distro that it doesn't work with they can recompile or re-write that driver to suit them.

As far as the hardware makers, printers and scanners are practically a disposable item these days. Every six months or so they release a new wave of devices, so they're not engineered for long lifetimes. Likewise, their software and drivers are not intended to have a long lifetime either. They release drivers for the operating systems that were available at release, and they'll release drivers for anything that comes out in the next few months, but after that they wash their hands and move on. This is partly because there is such a huge backlog of legacy printers out there that it would be a nightmare to keep them all current. The other part of it is that they'd much rather you just spend the $150 to upgrade to a newer/better/faster device because they'll actually make money in that case instead of spending money.

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