Rapid Obselescence

Moving to Windows 7 and 64-bit operating sytems is still in its infancy in some respects (no Adobe Flash Player yet) and in others it's leaving behind some good kit.

Our Nikon Coolscan IV, along with all Nikon film scanners, even the £2500 ones, are not recognised by Windows 7. The Nikon website says they have no plans to work on compatible software, apologies for any inconvenience and we hope you will buy Nikon again! Actually loading the software is fine, but the system just does not see the scanner.

Fortunately we still have a Vista laptop and that works like a dream....so we're scanning again.

Now Sue is having a go with Sims3.....early days yet!

At least Windows 7 is not asking for permission to follow instructions at every turn...

We were lucky - everything we have was seen and compatible with Windows 7. We checked everything on the Windows site before buying W7.
I really like it, even the stripped down version on my netbook.
My only regret is letting our so have the third licence in the family pack we bought - otherwise I would have put it on the netbook. They don't do the family pack any more sadly. We still have a couple of computers that would benefit from W7 and the family pack was a bargain. Obviously it was too popular so they dropped it .

John,
I'm sure Ed Hamrick's VueScan works on x64 - that should recognise even the ancient SCSI scanners
Matt

I was just about to say that and you may find that just downloading the free trial is enough to get your old software working again.

Thanks all of you, at least we're up and running and those ideas can be looked at next.

er... Windows 7-64 works just fine here. Flash certainly exists!

Anything that has a Vista driver should work on Win-7... yes the 64-bit can be an issue, but would you try to put 70mm film in a 35mm camera?

If Windows 7 is not seeing the scanner, then it may be a driver issue. Windows 7 is quite fussy about only using certified drivers. If you upgraded from an earlier version rather than a fresh install then the unoacked drivers are already on your hard drive.

Alternatively copy the driver files from the laptop onto a memory stick

You can force an install by choosing to manually add hardware and at the appropriate point in the installation, point Windows towards the old drivers.

With a bit of luck the scanner should at least be recognised.

Regards - Steve

Windows 7, and Vista before it, refuses to install unsigned drivers, but there is a workaround.

Reboot the system and press f8 (several times during the boot process to make sure) to get the boot menu where you will find an option, I cant remember the exact wording, to allow the installation of unsigned drivers.

Vuescan works fine on Windows 7 Pro x64 with my Minolta Dimage Dualscan iV and Epson scanner (about 10 years old).

When installing Vuescan, use it's drivers rather than those supplied with the device.

Thanks everyone, I've sorted my own issues now, with your help, and this thread might be helpful to others as well.

Anyone who installs unsigned drivers is running on very dangerous ground indeed. All Kernel-level drivers MUST be signed - in 64-bit Windows OSes - or they will not be loaded, so any "workarounds" may or may not function.

Alternative: run a spare copy of Vista in a virtual machine. VirtualBox is free and functional.

Bret - who's been using Win7 for over a year...

Hello,


Yes you are right that windows seven is not good for every matter.xp and vista is better.


thanks!!

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This is the first time I have read (or heard for that matter) anyone place Vista in a higher regard than Windows 7. I'd certainly disagree with that.

Have a look at this thread there are several solutions for this problem.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistamigration/thread/3483...

I think it's fair to say that Windows 7 is a blessing after the Vista disaster. I did not install Vista on my machines, neither did my office. We went straight from XP to Windows 7.

So far I have not seen any compatibility issues at all on my machine, both my printer and my old scanner came straight up, and so did all my software.

Can't agree on Vista being better than 7 I'm afraid.

Vista was a bloated mess compared to 7 IMHO (I use both on a daily basis).