Question about software drivers ...

[bill_n_opus]

Scenario:

Was reading another thread about old scanner drivers. I have a old Visioneer 7600 parallel scanner and it's still functional. Always worked well actually. I hate to throw it out.

Problem:

Driver development stopped at win2k even though people have been able to do workarounds to get this scanner to work in XP. I managed to get it to work a long time ago when I upgraded to XP ... but then was unable to get it going again.

Question:

For any software engineers/driver developers ... is it really that hard to write updated drivers for XP if there's already win2k drivers?

Or is it a situation where there are costs associated with licensing ... or a software developer needs to have a good understanding of the "source code" for MS to get proper development?

Why are there not "emulators" available for such situations?

I may be off-base expecting solutions to this problem ... but I guess I don't understand the process in driver-development. I would imagine that it's not worth the time for someone to update the driver to get it going for XP.

I just don't understand why Visioneer won't do it - because the 7600 was a popular scanner recommended by many pc magazines and i'm sure many people bought it - an internet search shows many consumers frustrated by the lack of driver development.

I, for one, am going to look at other manufacturers in the future for my scanning needs (like an all-in-one perhaps) and my first choice will NOT be Visioneer. If that's the general reaction by consumers then I again don't understand why Visioneer won't offer updated drivers to keep customers loyal. That I don't get ... and I understand marketing. Computers in general have not moved fully towards a "mercenary" approach. People are still Intel or AMD fanboys for example. Why let go loyal customers so easily?

*edit*

I may have sounded a bit harsh upon further review ... upon doing more research on Visioneer's site it says "not designed for XP" which i'm curious about.

Is it truly a situation where XP presents too difficult a hurdle to jump over to provide stable drivers for the scanner? Or is it because of the reasons I outlined previously? Laziness, cost?

[AGuyNamedMike]

From

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/210/...-new-computer/

Hi, I have the same model (Visioneer 7600) working fine under Windows XP Profesional. You must do some tweaking in order to get it to work for you.

First go here: http://www.visioneer.com/support/leg...0downloads.stm
and download the Win2K driver (7600u2K.exe).

1.Install the driver, then go to
2.Device Manager (RUN: devmgmt.msc or My Computer-Properties-Hardware-Device Manager) and look under the Imaging Devices and you should see the Visioneer 7600 with the infamous yellow mark.[If you don't see it continue this process anyway];

(Please bear with me since I do not remember all the details But I assure you I'm giving you a general idea of the whole process that will work for you!)

3.Click under the properties, then the DRIVER tab, then Update driver

4. You will have the Hardware Update Wizard , choose Install from a Specific Location [NEXT]

5. Then choose Do not search I will choose the driver to install [NEXT]

6 Now you should see the Visioneer 7600 listed.
7. It will give you a warning saying the driver you chose is not compatible or something CLICK CONTINUE ANYWAY.

8. Sometimes it will ask you for some missing files. I do not remember the names but you will resolve this by pointing the OS to the Install Folder or the WIN\SYSTEM or SYSTEM32 folder.

The last time I did a re-istall of WinXP I just copied the dll files from the Visioneer Shared folder on my Win98 partition ( I do have a dual boot system Win98-WinXP Pro)to the \Program Files\Scansoft\Paperport folder and to the \Windows\System and \Windows\System32 folders.

Hope this help!

The software download link in the post is dead, but here is a working one

http://support.visioneer.com/drivers/7600p.exe

[Brian Shannon]

http://members.driverguide.com/drive...driverid=82599

http://www.scanner-drivers.com/drivers/129/129263.htm

I found these with a google search, not sure why the company does not support XP with this model, they have a driver for the 7300.