Dump W7 for XP - HELP!

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Yousuf Khan wrote: []

It seems like this scanner is important to him. And it's the lack of
driver for this scanner that has him most frustrated. I don't know why
but for some reason people are really attached to their scanners,
especially Canon ones. I have a friend who is like this too. He has a
Canon scanner, and even though I've told him to just simply dump it
for a $99 printer/scanner which will likely be higher resolution than
this old Canon, he refuses to part with it and does everything he can
to avoid buying all-in-one printers which might make his scanner obsolete.
Yousuf Khan

I have a scanner which cost $1500 new.

I can remember when even a monochrome scanner cost lots of money (I
never paid that much, but unless you say how long ago ...); basically,
telling us the original price doesn't tell us: what is it about that
scanner that keeps you attached to it - is it A3 or other large format,
exceptional resolution, maybe a film scanner, or something?

My solution ?

The computer that drove it originally, still drives it. A "package deal".
That is virtually all that computer does. It isn't fast enough for
other work.

As long as there is a way to get files off that computer, it works great.
I was using the scanner several days ago, and used a USB stick for the
file transfer.

All it wastes is... space.

Paul

And time, to boot up the old computer whenever you want to scan (or
electricity, noise, etc. if you leave it on all the time).

Basically, I'm with Yousuf - it pains me, as an engineer, to say it, but
modern (and probably cheaper!) equipment can probably do what older
equipment can (and often better). But this may not be the case, hence my
asking what it is (other than original cost) about the scanner which
makes you so attached to it.

 

[Vic RR Garcia]

Practice?

Well, yes, practice will be the only advantage, everything else will be
problems, starting with drivers and ending with incompatibility problems
with 16 bit programs, just the kind of problems that the OP reported.
I did 'Upgrade' several laptops from Vista to XP, it was not easy, the
OP one, been originally Win7 is going to be harder (and not necessary,
since Win 7 work OK), most likely something will not have XP drivers for.
Had he pick a 32 bit Win7, option he'll have not those problems.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

It's AHCI that is not natively supported by XP and the driver needs to be
installed at the same time than the OS (it's possible to install it later
but it's quite a hack), there's usually a "switch" in the BIOS to put the
hard drives controller in IDE mode which works with XP even with SATA

[]
If you run XP in an emulator - I understand that a licence for XP is
included with some of the more expensive versions of 7, but you can I
believe run it in an emulator even under the cheaper versions of 7 -
then I think it just uses whatever hard disc the host system is using,
regardless of what actual hardware it's on: it appears as a disc
(probably EIDE) to the emulated PC.

I _think_ there's a microsoft emulator, either as part of 7 or
downloadable; there are certainly others, such as one by Sun. An
emulator is basically a pretend PC that runs as a program under 7; you
can install whatever OS you like on it.

I'm not sure if the person who mentioned XP a few posts back was talking
about the emulator route, but if he was, then the SATA (or whatever)
question is moot. The emulated PC "comes with" - i. e. thinks it has - a
fairly typical set of hardware for an XP machine, i. e. graphics, sound,
and so on; I think how big a disc it thinks it has, and where on the
host system that resides, is something you specify when setting up the
emulator.

 

[Paul]

And time, to boot up the old computer whenever you want to scan (or
electricity, noise, etc. if you leave it on all the time).

Basically, I'm with Yousuf - it pains me, as an engineer, to say it, but
modern (and probably cheaper!) equipment can probably do what older
equipment can (and often better). But this may not be the case, hence my
asking what it is (other than original cost) about the scanner which
makes you so attached to it.

As a collector of high tech "crap", I've been
screwed out of the usage of expensive gear before.
I remember fondly, the frame grabber I bought for
$500, that was obsolete six months later.

This is my way of saying, I really didn't waste the $1500,
as the device still functions, and the scans look as good
as the day I got it.

I can't move it to another computer, because there'd be no
driver. The company that made it, no longer makes scanners.

It has a larger bed on it (legal docs). It doubles as a picnic table
when you're not scanning on it. It scans color negatives,
albeit the resolution really isn't good enough to take
that seriously. But when told the film type, it did a
respectable job on the colors, making a positive, ready to
print off. It has two CCFL lamps, one in the lid and one
in the bed. It has good depth of field, and can scan things
not sitting flat on the bed. Not all modern scanners do that.

I will not waste a penny more on scanners. I already own one.
In fact, when I needed an inkjet printer, I went out of
my way to not include a scanning function. The inkjet just
prints and that is it.

It scans at a high enough resolution, for any practical
document work. It supports de-screen in the driver/control panel.

It doesn't scan at a high enough resolution for film, but you'd
use a dedicated film scanner for that, as using a flat bed with
slide holder or film holder, is silly. Dedicated film scanners
have de-noise functions, or dual illumination schemes, that
do a better job than a flatbed can do.

It came with an IT8 target for calibration. It also came
with its own copy of Photoshop.

*******

I keep re-using plenty of stuff here. I have a 4GB hard drive
from my original PC, that I still use. It gets one test install
after another (not for Windows 7 obviously). What's amazing,
is, the thing is still error free after all these years. The
transfer speed is dreadfully slow, but that's part of its charm.

I have plenty of other, larger, faster disks, but that one
sees more than its fair share of usage. Maybe its the novelty
value, but I get a kick out of the fact it still works.

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I keep re-using plenty of stuff here. I have a 4GB hard drive
from my original PC, that I still use. It gets one test install
after another (not for Windows 7 obviously). What's amazing,
is, the thing is still error free after all these years. The
transfer speed is dreadfully slow, but that's part of its charm.

I have plenty of other, larger, faster disks, but that one
sees more than its fair share of usage. Maybe its the novelty
value, but I get a kick out of the fact it still works.

I have a couple of ancient hard drives in my system as well, though not
quite as ancient as that. One of them is a 200GB and the other one is a
300GB. They are both over 5 years old, in fact one of them used to be my
main boot drive when I used to run Win 2000 & XP.

I run a background disk health monitoring program, and I started seeing
SMART errors on it. I got worried about the state of my boot disk, so I
eventually bought new hard disks to replace this one as my boot disk.

The new disks ran for awhile and then through weird incidents (possibly
power-supply and/or chipset related) these new disks ended up dying on
me before the old disks did. The old disks were still displaying SMART
errors, but they did not succumb to them. The new disks had no SMART
errors but still they might die on me very suddenly one day after a
reboot. I've lost data as a result of the new hard disks, but I've not
lost one bit of data from these old hard disks.

Well, I've since upgraded the motherboard and power supply on this
system, and now things are much more stable. But these two ancient hard
drives are still on the system and still working performing daily work.
And strangely after the motherboard was changed, after several months,
the SMART errors started reversing themselves and actually went down.
They are now absolutely perfect according to the SMART diagnostics scan,
100% health!

Yousuf Khan

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

And time, to boot up the old computer whenever you want to scan (or
electricity, noise, etc. if you leave it on all the time).
Basically, I'm with Yousuf - it pains me, as an engineer, to say it,
but modern (and probably cheaper!) equipment can probably do what
older equipment can (and often better). But this may not be the case,
hence my asking what it is (other than original cost) about the
scanner which makes you so attached to it.

As a collector of high tech "crap", I've been
screwed out of the usage of expensive gear before.
I remember fondly, the frame grabber I bought for
$500, that was obsolete six months later.[/QUOTE]

Ah, you're like me, just like to keep stuff working! That's what I meant
by "as an engineer it pains me" to say new stuff does better for
cheaper. Yousuf is right though, that people shouldn't stick with old
OSes, computers, etc., just to keep something old going, *if doing so
actually costs them more than buying new*. If it's _satisfaction_ in old
stuff, that's different!

This is my way of saying, I really didn't waste the $1500,
as the device still functions, and the scans look as good
as the day I got it.

I can't move it to another computer, because there'd be no
driver. The company that made it, no longer makes scanners.

It has a larger bed on it (legal docs). It doubles as a picnic table

Ah, so it _is_ larger (though only slightly).

when you're not scanning on it. It scans color negatives,
(-:

albeit the resolution really isn't good enough to take
that seriously. But when told the film type, it did a
respectable job on the colors, making a positive, ready to

(That is of course a function of the driver, and presumably other
software could do it.)

print off. It has two CCFL lamps, one in the lid and one
in the bed. It has good depth of field, and can scan things
not sitting flat on the bed. Not all modern scanners do that.

Yes, I've used a scanner for that sort of purpose too.

I will not waste a penny more on scanners. I already own one.
In fact, when I needed an inkjet printer, I went out of
my way to not include a scanning function. The inkjet just
prints and that is it.

When I bought this netbook (NC-20 - about two years ago IIRR), I went
out of my way to get one still with XP (it seems I probably did right to
avoid Vista which was what was then new, but that wasn't my aim), so I
know where you're coming from.

It scans at a high enough resolution, for any practical
document work. It supports de-screen in the driver/control panel.

(Again, could be done afterwards - presumably not a function of the
actual hardware. But convenient when it's in the driver, I agree.)

It doesn't scan at a high enough resolution for film, but you'd
use a dedicated film scanner for that, as using a flat bed with
slide holder or film holder, is silly. Dedicated film scanners

I've always thought that!
[]

I keep re-using plenty of stuff here. I have a 4GB hard drive
from my original PC, that I still use. It gets one test install

(Hmm. I think my original PC had an 80M drive. There are limits ...
though I think the floppy drive may still be in use, having been
transferred from one computer to another!)

after another (not for Windows 7 obviously). What's amazing,
is, the thing is still error free after all these years. The
transfer speed is dreadfully slow, but that's part of its charm.
IKWYM.

I have plenty of other, larger, faster disks, but that one
sees more than its fair share of usage. Maybe its the novelty
value, but I get a kick out of the fact it still works.

Paul

It's like using valve (tube) audio gear, or old cars, or ... (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in
silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in
silencing mankind. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

 

[Ken Blake]

Are you sure about that last part? I don't think there's any such
animal as a 32-bit scanner. The scanner is what it is; just a piece of
hardware. It's the driver that needs to be 32-bit or 64-bit, whatever
is required by the host OS. Or am I missing something?

You have it exactly right, and you're missing nothing. Scanners don't
have "bitness."

 

[Ken Blake]

It seems like this scanner is important to him. And it's the lack of
driver for this scanner that has him most frustrated. I don't know why
but for some reason people are really attached to their scanners,
especially Canon ones. I have a friend who is like this too. He has a
Canon scanner, and even though I've told him to just simply dump it for
a $99 printer/scanner which will likely be higher resolution than this
old Canon, he refuses to part with it and does everything he can to
avoid buying all-in-one printers which might make his scanner obsolete.

My view is different from yours. I recommend against all-in-one
printer-scanners for almost everyone. That's because if either the
scanner or printer dies, the other one dies with it. It's better to
have two separate devices.

And from a personal standpoint, I greatly prefer laser printers to
inkjets, and as far as I know, there are no all-in-ones with laser
printers.

The major exception to that is for someone who doesn't have enough
desk space for two devices; for someone like that, an all-in-one makes
sense.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

And from a personal standpoint, I greatly prefer laser printers to
inkjets, and as far as I know, there are no all-in-ones with laser
printers.

Then this might interest you:
http://find.pcworld.com/71853

Which was new to me just a couple of hours ago

As for when an all-in-one dies, you have to replace both units: OK, I
can live with that

 

[jbm]

What's "the 32-bit option"?

The programs install with no problem in the 32-bit programs directory.

Something doesn't sound right. What's the name of the program you're

referring to above?

It's an old Steinberg suite of audio applications. All of them come up with
the same list of missing files. It also happens to my old licenced version
of Adobe Acrobat (compiler, not reader).

Are you sure about that last part? I don't think there's any such

animal as a 32-bit scanner. The scanner is what it is; just a piece of
hardware. It's the driver that needs to be 32-bit or 64-bit, whatever
is required by the host OS. Or am I missing something?

O.K. So I should have said a 64-bit generic driver where only a 32-bit
driver is available.

jim

 

[jbm]

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message

Char Jackson said there are other options. One that I use to good effect
for legacy hardware and maybe even some software is VMware with a
license for Windows XP. Cheaper than a laptop (unless you already have
the laptop).

It seems like this scanner is important to him. And it's the lack of
driver for this scanner that has him most frustrated. I don't know why
but for some reason people are really attached to their scanners,
especially Canon ones. I have a friend who is like this too. He has a
Canon scanner, and even though I've told him to just simply dump it for
a $99 printer/scanner which will likely be higher resolution than this
old Canon, he refuses to part with it and does everything he can to
avoid buying all-in-one printers which might make his scanner obsolete.

Yousuf Khan

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You're spot on, Yousuf. The scanner cost a small fortune in its day, and was
bought with one particular use in mind. I have over 3000 negatives and
transparencies that I was in the process of scanning. Very few flat bed
scanners have this facility these days, and none of the combined units do.
It will cost over £200 to acquire a dedicated negative scanner of decent
enough quality for the job, especially because I constructed a set of
holders to scan 110 (the tiny ones) & 126 (Instamatic) negatives. I don't
want to have to go through that again.

jim

 

[jbm]

"Vic RR Garcia" wrote in message

Well, yes, practice will be the only advantage, everything else will be
problems, starting with drivers and ending with incompatibility problems
with 16 bit programs, just the kind of problems that the OP reported.
I did 'Upgrade' several laptops from Vista to XP, it was not easy, the
OP one, been originally Win7 is going to be harder (and not necessary,
since Win 7 work OK), most likely something will not have XP drivers for.
Had he pick a 32 bit Win7, option he'll have not those problems.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting point in your last sentence there. Just before I read your post,
it did cross my mind whether I would have the problem with the missing files
in Windows that are preventing some programs from running if I was running a
32-bit OS. The answer I came up with was "probably, yes". MS have probably
assumed (or stipulated) that OEM's now include all the necessary files in
their own programs, unlike in the olden days where programs relied on common
files being in the Windows directory to save space within their own
programs. If MS have dropped these common files from Win7 64-bit, then is is
almost a certainty that they have dropped them from Win7 32-bit. So I would
still be stuck.

jim

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It seems like this scanner is important to him. And it's the lack of
driver for this scanner that has him most frustrated. I don't know why
but for some reason people are really attached to their scanners,
especially Canon ones. I have a friend who is like this too. He has a
Canon scanner, and even though I've told him to just simply dump it for
a $99 printer/scanner which will likely be higher resolution than this
old Canon, he refuses to part with it and does everything he can to
avoid buying all-in-one printers which might make his scanner obsolete.

Yousuf Khan

And if he does what I suggest, he can use the original scanner. What's
wrong with that?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

"Vic RR Garcia" wrote in message

Well, yes, practice will be the only advantage, everything else will be
problems, starting with drivers and ending with incompatibility problems
with 16 bit programs, just the kind of problems that the OP reported.
I did 'Upgrade' several laptops from Vista to XP, it was not easy, the
OP one, been originally Win7 is going to be harder (and not necessary,
since Win 7 work OK), most likely something will not have XP drivers for.
Had he pick a 32 bit Win7, option he'll have not those problems.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting point in your last sentence there. Just before I read your post,
it did cross my mind whether I would have the problem with the missing files
in Windows that are preventing some programs from running if I was running a
32-bit OS. The answer I came up with was "probably, yes". MS have probably
assumed (or stipulated) that OEM's now include all the necessary files in
their own programs, unlike in the olden days where programs relied on common
files being in the Windows directory to save space within their own
programs. If MS have dropped these common files from Win7 64-bit, then is is
almost a certainty that they have dropped them from Win7 32-bit. So I would
still be stuck.

jim

(You might consider a proper newsreader.)

Windows did and does provide a library of Windows DLLs to provide hooks
into the functionality of Windows, and programmers are expected to use
them, rather than reinvent the wheel while producing inconsistency as a
side effect. That has not changed.

Where programs have other functionality, they do it by providing their
own code as always, and as always the code is kept in directories
belonging to the app.

For a time, in the good old days, non-Microsoft programmers would
customize the Windows DLLs and then copy the customized versions into
the Windows folders. This was bad practice, as I think should be
obvious...It could screw up Windows functions, and furthermore, when my
program replaced your program which had replaced a Windows program, you
were screwed.

Your missing files might be files that the app is trying to copy into
the Windows directory tree, but nowadays that tree tends to be protected
against such malfeasance, and SFC provides some recovery options as
well.

 

[Char Jackson]

You have it exactly right, and you're missing nothing. Scanners don't
have "bitness."

Thanks, Ken.

 

[Ken Blake]

Then this might interest you:
http://find.pcworld.com/71853

Which was new to me just a couple of hours ago

Thanks very much. It's new to me too. I had never seen an all-in-one
with a laser printer before. But it's a monochrome laser, not a color
laser like mine (an inexpensive Samsung). And it's certainly
inexpensive.

As for when an all-in-one dies, you have to replace both units: OK, I
can live with that

That's OK. I'm not trying to talk you into anything you don't want. I
only wanted to point out, to those who care, that if one dies, you
need to replace both. Not everyone will agree with me, but among those
who realize that that's the situation, a lot of people will.

The laser all-in one you cite above is $150. A quick web search tells
me that for about that same price, you can buy a Brother HL-2140
monochrome laser for $86.23 and a Canon LiDE 60 (the scanner that I
use and like very much) for $80. For just a few dollars more than
$150, you get two separate units, and don't have to replace both if
one dies. To me, that makes the two units an easy choice.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks very much. It's new to me too. I had never seen an all-in-one
with a laser printer before. But it's a monochrome laser, not a color
laser like mine (an inexpensive Samsung). And it's certainly
inexpensive.



That's OK. I'm not trying to talk you into anything you don't want. I
only wanted to point out, to those who care, that if one dies, you
need to replace both. Not everyone will agree with me, but among those
who realize that that's the situation, a lot of people will.

The laser all-in one you cite above is $150. A quick web search tells
me that for about that same price, you can buy a Brother HL-2140
monochrome laser for $86.23 and a Canon LiDE 60 (the scanner that I
use and like very much) for $80. For just a few dollars more than
$150, you get two separate units, and don't have to replace both if
one dies. To me, that makes the two units an easy choice.

That's OK. I'm not trying to talk you into anything you don't want.

(I had fun doing that!)

My current Canon all-in-one just keeps soldiering on, denying me the
opportunity of buying the latest-greatest whatever, so the failure of
half the system is not scaring me just yet. I have forgotten how many
years ago I bought it (maybe 4-5), but although it's internet capable,
it is not wireless. I guess that's a clue to its age.

 

[charlie]

And if he does what I suggest, he can use the original scanner. What's
wrong with that?

I cannot count how many printers, scanners, and all in ones were
eventually scrapped because the device OEM refused to provide updated
software. The problem even extended to some of the early digital cameras
that used "proprietary" data storage formats. We had a couple of Kodak
digital cameras that fell into this category.

I can remember going through all sorts of hoops to get a circa 1999
Panasonic laser all in one to work with later windows versions. After
getting it to work with a new windows version in the early 2000's, and
using it for about six months, a bearing froze in the rotating mirror
assembly. Panasonic wanted more for the repair information to re-time
the mirror assembly than the cost of a brand new equivalent or better
all in one.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

You're spot on, Yousuf. The scanner cost a small fortune in its day,
and was bought with one particular use in mind. I have over 3000
negatives and transparencies that I was in the process of scanning.
Very few flat bed scanners have this facility these days, and none of
the combined units do. It will cost over £200 to acquire a dedicated
negative scanner of decent enough quality for the job, especially
because I constructed a set of holders to scan 110 (the tiny ones) &
126 (Instamatic) negatives. I don't want to have to go through that again.[/QUOTE]
[]
Understood. What aspect would require the £200 scanner - resolution?
gamma? just the handling facilities? (I too have lots of slides and
negatives, and might be interested in pointers to the £200 scanners
you've found.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in
silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in
silencing mankind. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

 

[Ken Blake]

I cannot count how many printers, scanners, and all in ones were
eventually scrapped because the device OEM refused to provide updated
software.

Yep! Sad but true. It's up to the manufacturer of the hardware to
write and make available for download those drivers. Especially if
your hardware is older, it may well be that the manufacturer has
decided that it's not worth his time and effort to develop drivers for
hardware that he is no longer selling.