Microtek Scanners

[OLpal]

This is just to inform anyone trying to search for Vista Twain drivers for their Microtek 4900 Scanners that they need not bother Microtek..
As Microtek has informed me today that they WILL NOT SUPPORT VISTA for WINDOWS on this scanner & some others !!..
So i guess i'm stuck buying a new one.. GUESS what brand it won't be !!
When companys fail to support their customers with new window drivers they usally lose customers dry up & blow away !!
Darn i liked my 4900 to !!!

Ol'Pal :brokenheart:

 

[corkyg]

I hear ya'! I'm in the same boat with my Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner. Fortunately, it is on an XP Pro system and should be good for at least another year.

 

[MadAmos]

I have two HP scanners in the same boat I don't remember the model numbers as they are both in the "closet of shame" and frankly I am afraid to look to closely I think there is a Commodore 64 and an Apple II in there somewhere, along with who knows what else.


Amos

 

[QuixoticOne]

They're often USB devices, you MIGHT be able to get away with running XP or even LINUX in a virtual machine, use a VM software that lets you pass through USB devices to the control of the guest OS, and voila, scanning.

IMHO it is just *shameful* for any company to intentionally refuse to support perfectly good / capable devices in subsequent OS versions just because they're lazy or would rather have you throw the unit out and buy a new one. Haven't they seen the MOUNTAINS of discarded (often good) IT equipment filling the landfills just due to this kind of enforced obsolescence. It is ruinous to the environment, the economy, and highly disrespectful to their customers who trusted them to support their products.

The US should really start to get "take back" laws like some european countries have where manufacturers must at their own expense arrange for collection and proper recycling of unwanted / broken products they sell. Maybe then they'd be a little less eager to sell you things that will likely break or be unsupported within a few months after they sell it to you.

If they're going to abandon the product they should publish the specifications / source codes as open source so at least someone else can maintain the software if they desire to do so.

If they just want to make a buck they could at least offer new VISTA or LINUX or MAC or whatever drivers and just sell them for $15 or whatever; they'd probably make more profit off of that than they did off selling you the hardware anyway in many cases.

 

[OLpal]

Corky, i feel your pain, i was going to swap scanners with my wife as she has a nice Epson Perfection... Contacted Epson & same crap on hers !! This is getting to be B.S. !! What we have to get politicians involved & insist on minimum 10 yrs of support.. This might be handy anyway with Vista not being supported... XP should have a 10 yr. support also !!

Amos, i'm sorry to hear of your news as we went to Best Buy & bought a real nice all-n-one C5280 that had a great sale price.. from what your saying , when Windows 7 comes out none of these places will support that either ????



QuinOne your absolutely correct, these are both great scanners & manf. should be required to support the people that buy their products with upgraded drivers !!
I like this take-back thing.. Maybe a Buy-Back for unsupported products !! that might change their tune !!

Originally posted by: corkyg
I hear ya'! I'm in the same boat with my Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner. Fortunately, it is on an XP Pro system and should be good for at least another year.

 

[bruceb]

Hardware makers don't want us keeping a product that keeps working. So the only choice if you move to a new "better"
operating system, is in many cases, buy a new product. Which is how they make money. Not from me if I can help it.

 

[Gibson486]

I did not even know microtek was still around.....Is visioneer still around?

 

[OLpal]

It's like a conspiracy, they bond together in a vile non-support aliance..
Seems like 1 company would step forward & support their machines & customers... Then they could turn that into a hugr PR ad.
"WE SUPPORT OUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS WITH VISTA DRIVERS, WHERE OTHERS DON'T""
& SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS !!!

Originally posted by: bruceb
Hardware makers don't want us keeping a product that keeps working. So the only choice if you move to a new "better"
operating system, is in many cases, buy a new product. Which is how they make money. Not from me if I can help it.

 

[Zepper]

Anyone with any perspective on the PC market should know that not all hardware will be supported on new OSes - nothing new about that. Besides that, who forced the OP to go to Vista? You don't move on a new OS until you are sure that drivers will be available for the hardware you want to use. OTOH, if a piece of hardware is really appreciated by a good number of folks, it is possible that someone wrote or will write a 3rd-party Twain driver for it - no magic to doing that... Canon printer owners have had to do that for a good while if they wanted to use many models of their printers with Linux and had to pay for the drivers in many cases.

.bh.

 

[corkyg]

Asequel on my Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner. A vista compatible TWAIN drive is now available from Epson - none of the scanware however, but TWAIN is really all that is essential. Many other products can "acquire" from a scanner via TWAIN.

 

[bruceb]

Zepper, if you think it is that easy, why don't you try to port the XP driver to Vista for the users ?
And as I said in my earlier post, quite often you get a new computer and you have no way to revert
to say XP (no drivers to be had) .. you didn't want Vista or whatever the latest / greatest is and your
old hardware accessories worked fine. I would not replace them, unless they needed replacing or if I
needed / wanted something with more or better capabilities .. I still have a Lexmark X73 (about 7 yrs)
and the darn thing still works. (FYI .. I also have an HP7410 .. price was too good to pass on it)

 

[Zepper]

I've never claimed to be a programmer but I do know that most of the Twain back end is out there, so all you need is the hardware-specific info. OP didn't mention whether he took the time to do a Web search for a 3rd-party Vista driver or a work-around.

I just did a brief search and found the work-around he got in another thread here as well as a patch for 64-bit XP. Didn't go past page two of hits for those...

.bh.

 

[Mem]

One reason why I like Canon,their Vista driver support is pretty good compared to other manufacturers,shame some companies are just plain lazy when it comes to driver support,Vista has been around for over 18 months now so there's no real excuse.

 

[Excelsior]

Same with my Visioneer scanner. Fuckers don't support vista. I mean, come on. Its just a USB scanner. How hard can it be...

 

[OLpal]

Hi Zepper !! Not everyone is on such a high level of anal retentiveness as yourself !!
Maybe someday you'll buy a new car & find out that they're not going to supply premium unleaded fuel anymore & your stuck with a $44,000 paper weight.. Then maybe you'll want a little consumer protection from these evil companys !!
You keep click'n them heels in fairy land, my friend !!
Please take this in gest !!
No insult intended !!

Originally posted by: Zepper
I've never claimed to be a programmer but I do know that most of the Twain back end is out there, so all you need is the hardware-specific info. OP didn't mention whether he took the time to do a Web search for a 3rd-party Vista driver or a work-around.

I just did a brief search and found the work-around he got in another thread here as well as a patch for 64-bit XP. Didn't go past page two of hits for those...

.bh.

 

[SKORPI0]

Hopefully this helps, try this software ... Vuescan

Microtek supported scanners link.

The following scanners are supported on Windows when the WIA driver from the manufacturer is installed:

ScanMaker 3640
ScanMaker 3740
ScanMaker 3800
ScanMaker 3830
ScanMaker 3840
ScanMaker 3860
ScanMaker 3880
ScanMaker 4100
ScanMaker 4800
ScanMaker 4850
ScanMaker 4900
ScanMaker 4900
ScanMaker 5800
ScanMaker 5900
ScanMaker 5950
ScanMaker 6000
ScanMaker 6100
ScanMaker i300
ScanMaker i320
ScanMaker i410
ScanMaker s200
ScanMaker s280
ScanMaker s400
ScanMaker s430
ScanMaker s480
ScanMaker s500

I was on the same situation when there was no Vista-64 drivers for my HP ScanJet 6100C (SCSI). Works great for me. Good luck.

 

[bruceb]

Nice try .... but I don't think it will work .. see this part of the supported scanners page:

The following scanners are supported on Windows when the WIA driver from the manufacturer is installed:

* ScanMaker 3640
* ScanMaker 3740
* ScanMaker 3800
* ScanMaker 3830
* ScanMaker 3840
* ScanMaker 3860
* ScanMaker 3880
* ScanMaker 4100
* ScanMaker 4800
* ScanMaker 4850
* ScanMaker 4900
* ScanMaker 4900

The OP has the Scanmaker 4900 .. Now I don't know for sure what the Windows WIA Drivers are, but he needs something
that will work in Vista ... Does Vista have the WIA Drivers ? ? If not, it will not work.

 

[OLpal]

Originally posted by: bruceb
Nice try .... but I don't think it will work .. see this part of the supported scanners page:

The following scanners are supported on Windows when the WIA driver from the manufacturer is installed:

* ScanMaker 4900
* ScanMaker 4900

The OP has the Scanmaker 4900 .. Now I don't know for sure what the Windows WIA Drivers are, but he needs something
that will work in Vista ... Does Vista have the WIA Drivers ? ? If not, it will not work.

Thanks BruceB & Skorpio , i 'm not sure what WIA drivers are ???
Besides that software is $40 for the plain version, i can get new Epson Scanner w/software for $83

So while building my new E8600 [still installing stuff] i figured why not solve this VISTA incompatability problem.. So i went back to Windows XP where i was satisfied for years.
Kind of messes up the DX10 games, but you can't have everything !!!

I still say these manf. should support their users with new windows drivers for more that 3 years.. Should be ten years !!! A lot of folks have printers, scanners & other perph. thay can't use because of no drivers for Vista !!! Which i think is pure BullShit....

All except for zepper, he thinks it's okay for them to crap on us !!

 

[Zepper]

OlPal,

Well, over my 25+ years of tinkering with personal computers, I've had plenty of hardware and software go obsolete on me for lack of drivers and other reasons. If you want hardware frustration, use IBM's OS/2... It's just a fact of life in this game. Canon still doesn't offer Linux drivers directly - others had to build them (even though Canon was 90+% there with their drivers for the latest Mac OS). Drivers that work are still a holy grail in the PC world.

There are additives that allow unleaded to be used in antique cars that need leaded and octane improvers to bump the knock resistance of unleaded regular... I went thru the leaded/unleaded change myself with a supercharged Studebaker. The refiners won't make it and the gas stations won't sell it, but you can make it yourself.

.bh.

 

[OLpal]

Zepper
You sound like you've been in this as long as i have !!
Commodore 64 , tandy 1000 was heaven & some trs or something !!
$640 for a 10 meg hard drive..

As for things going obsolete!! How about when APPLE just up & abandond their original apple console users..

I still feel these companys need to support their windows users for a decent amount of time !! we're talking millions of $$$$ here of us users money !!

Thanks for not Flame'n on me after kidding with you in previous post !! your a good egg !!

 

[bruceb]

So have I .. first rig was an Altair 8800B .. built from a kit .. never did get it working.
Next up was a Northstar Horizon Z-80 4MHZ 65KB RAM. 5 1/4" Floppys, no hard drive,
no color display & that was over $3K back in 1981 or so .. Lear Sigler ADM-42 and Video Terminal
card was another $800 or so .. Very pricey .. ran some OS called Northstar DOS / Northstar Basic
Now it sits on the floor gathering dust as an Antique. .. Very heavy .. power tranny was about 6 x 6 x 3

 

[OLpal]

Boy you, i, & zepper are showing our gray roots !!!
I've been beating on my head trying to remember name of puter, i think it was 8086 [might have been Z-80] & the keyboard attached to the front with clasps for portability !! Compaq had one that was similiar...

Originally posted by: bruceb
So have I .. first rig was an Altair 8800B .. built from a kit .. never did get it working.
Next up was a Northstar Horizon Z-80 4MHZ 65KB RAM. 5 1/4" Floppys, no hard drive,
no color display & that was over $3K back in 1981 or so .. Lear Sigler ADM-42 and Video Terminal
card was another $800 or so .. Very pricey .. ran some OS called Northstar DOS / Northstar Basic
Now it sits on the floor gathering dust as an Antique. .. Very heavy .. power tranny was about 6 x 6 x 3

 

[Zepper]

Kaypro, Columbia, Hyperion, Osborne, Dolch, etc. My first was a Heathkit H-88 with 48k and cassette mass storage (which I had to mod from a GE portable cassette recorder) - "OS" was Benton Harbor BASIC.

.bh.