HP Photosmart Scanner S20

I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium. I was able to get the HP S20 scanner
to run under XP, but I am unable to get it working with Vista. There are no
Vista drivers on the HP site for the product.

The scanner is connected via a USB port. When I run the scanner's software,
everything looks fine, then I get the red X message dialogue that says, "No
scanner is connected or there is a problem communicating with it." When I
click OK, the message and the scanner's software dissapear.

When I go to Control Panel and click on Scanners and Cameras it says that
there are no scanners connected. I have downloaded the lastest (XP) software
for the device. I click on "Have Disk" (which I don't) and browse to program
files/HP Photosmart. I can find no drivers in any directory/subdirectory.
The Hardware installation applet looks for *.inf files. There are none.

I'm now at a loss as to what to do next. The scanner is an old product, but
it worked fine with XP. It's a great product because it scans pictures,
slides, and negative strips.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Tom Bowen

Tom,

Clearly, your scanner is not compatible with Vista. The same thing happened
to my HP scanner. In my case, the HP website told me that no drivers will be
made available for the scanner (too old). Buy a new scanner. You gotta like
that.

I can only suggest that you try running your scanner in compatibility mode.
If that don't work, do like I have to do: buy a new one.
--
freddy


"Tom Bowen" wrote:

> I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium. I was able to get the HP S20 scanner
> to run under XP, but I am unable to get it working with Vista. There are no
> Vista drivers on the HP site for the product.
>
> The scanner is connected via a USB port. When I run the scanner's software,
> everything looks fine, then I get the red X message dialogue that says, "No
> scanner is connected or there is a problem communicating with it." When I
> click OK, the message and the scanner's software dissapear.
>
> When I go to Control Panel and click on Scanners and Cameras it says that
> there are no scanners connected. I have downloaded the lastest (XP) software
> for the device. I click on "Have Disk" (which I don't) and browse to program
> files/HP Photosmart. I can find no drivers in any directory/subdirectory.
> The Hardware installation applet looks for *.inf files. There are none.
>
> I'm now at a loss as to what to do next. The scanner is an old product, but
> it worked fine with XP. It's a great product because it scans pictures,
> slides, and negative strips.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Tom Bowen

That looks like a very nice little dedicated scanner. I did a Google on
it and came up with this imagingresource review:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/HPS20/S20A.HTM

which contains the following at the end of the review:

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

Other Software for the PhotoSmart

Thanks to its low price and the large numbers of units that have been
sold, there is actually third-party software available for the HP
PhotoSmart Scanner! We did a very limited evaluation of Ed Hamrick's
VueScan program, about which we've generally heard very favorable
comments on the rec.photo.digital newsgroup. As of this writing, it's
available as a freeware demo, with a 15-day time limit: After that,
you'll need to purchase Ed's companion VuePrint program for $40, the
registration for which includes a license for VueScan. (VuePrint is an
excellent utility for printing multiple images on a page.) Ed's
original VueSmart scanning application offered many extensions beyond
the capabilities of the HP software, and his new version has both
expanded features, and full support for the S20 version of the
PhotoSmart scanner.

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

I've seen a number of references to this Vuescan utility here and it is
said to work fine under VISTA so your simplest solution would be to
download and try it.

If you do this make sure you uninstall all the HP software for the
scanner that you may have installed and do this through Add/Remove
Programs; also delete any icon that may appear under Control Panel /
Printers and Scanners. Disconnect the USB cable from the PC, not just
from the scanner and reboot.

Then proceed to install the software without the scanner cable
connected to the PC and only connect up when told to by the software
installation or after [Finish].

You could also try doing what I did with an even older HP SJ5P flatabed
scanner and that is to do a clean installation of the software using
Compatibility mode and Run as Administrator. To do this locate the
startup file for installing the software -- might be setup.exe or
autorun.exe -- right mouse click on it and select Compatibility. The
set it to an earlier version of Windows (you said W2000 worked?) and
check the box for Run as Administrator.

That worked for me when I installed the even older Deskscan 2.9
software for my SJ5P setting compatibility in that case to XP with SP2.

Good luck!

Tom,

Based on the other poster's comments, I did a google search for HP scanner
drivers for Vista. I found this site that offers free drivers of all kinds
for Vista users:

http://www.radarsync.com/vista/vista...php?result=600

I found a driver listed for my scanner, but I haven't tried it, so I don't
know how it works. I looked for your HP S20 (Photosmart?) scanner, but I
didn't see it there. The site has a lot of Photosmart drivers for Vista,
including one called simply HP Photosmart. Take a look to see whether there
is something for you at the site. I also looked at the site selling the
ViewScan, and noted that it's listed as working with my scanner. So, I might
have two choices of drivers for my scanner. You learn something everyday.
--
freddy


"Tom Bowen" wrote:

> I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium. I was able to get the HP S20 scanner
> to run under XP, but I am unable to get it working with Vista. There are no
> Vista drivers on the HP site for the product.
>
> The scanner is connected via a USB port. When I run the scanner's software,
> everything looks fine, then I get the red X message dialogue that says, "No
> scanner is connected or there is a problem communicating with it." When I
> click OK, the message and the scanner's software dissapear.
>
> When I go to Control Panel and click on Scanners and Cameras it says that
> there are no scanners connected. I have downloaded the lastest (XP) software
> for the device. I click on "Have Disk" (which I don't) and browse to program
> files/HP Photosmart. I can find no drivers in any directory/subdirectory.
> The Hardware installation applet looks for *.inf files. There are none.
>
> I'm now at a loss as to what to do next. The scanner is an old product, but
> it worked fine with XP. It's a great product because it scans pictures,
> slides, and negative strips.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Tom Bowen

All,

OK, here's the deal on the free scanner driver software I downloaded from
www.radarsync: It worked well with my HP 2200c scanner, but there's a catch.

The image the software makes includes $ signs that will be removed when you
pay $40. The free scanner software is the same as that offered by ViewScan
(http://www.hamrick.com). It's actually the trial version of the ViewScan
software.

I've no problem with that, so I paid the $40. After doing that, I ran the
same image through the scanner. The $ signs were gone. OK, what do you want
for nothing.

My old scanner now works with Vista and it only cost $40. I'm happy.
--
freddy


"freddy" wrote:

> Tom,
>
> Based on the other poster's comments, I did a google search for HP scanner
> drivers for Vista. I found this site that offers free drivers of all kinds
> for Vista users:
>
> http://www.radarsync.com/vista/vista...php?result=600
>
> I found a driver listed for my scanner, but I haven't tried it, so I don't
> know how it works. I looked for your HP S20 (Photosmart?) scanner, but I
> didn't see it there. The site has a lot of Photosmart drivers for Vista,
> including one called simply HP Photosmart. Take a look to see whether there
> is something for you at the site. I also looked at the site selling the
> ViewScan, and noted that it's listed as working with my scanner. So, I might
> have two choices of drivers for my scanner. You learn something everyday.
> --
> freddy
>
>
> "Tom Bowen" wrote:
>
> > I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium. I was able to get the HP S20 scanner
> > to run under XP, but I am unable to get it working with Vista. There are no
> > Vista drivers on the HP site for the product.
> >
> > The scanner is connected via a USB port. When I run the scanner's software,
> > everything looks fine, then I get the red X message dialogue that says, "No
> > scanner is connected or there is a problem communicating with it." When I
> > click OK, the message and the scanner's software dissapear.
> >
> > When I go to Control Panel and click on Scanners and Cameras it says that
> > there are no scanners connected. I have downloaded the lastest (XP) software
> > for the device. I click on "Have Disk" (which I don't) and browse to program
> > files/HP Photosmart. I can find no drivers in any directory/subdirectory.
> > The Hardware installation applet looks for *.inf files. There are none.
> >
> > I'm now at a loss as to what to do next. The scanner is an old product, but
> > it worked fine with XP. It's a great product because it scans pictures,
> > slides, and negative strips.
> >
> > Any help would be appreciated.
> > Thank you,
> > Tom Bowen

"Tom Bowen" wrote:

> I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium. I was able to get the HP S20 scanner
> to run under XP, but I am unable to get it working with Vista. There are no
> Vista drivers on the HP site for the product.
>
> The scanner is connected via a USB port. When I run the scanner's software,
> everything looks fine, then I get the red X message dialogue that says, "No
> scanner is connected or there is a problem communicating with it." When I
> click OK, the message and the scanner's software dissapear.
>
> When I go to Control Panel and click on Scanners and Cameras it says that
> there are no scanners connected. I have downloaded the lastest (XP) software
> for the device. I click on "Have Disk" (which I don't) and browse to program
> files/HP Photosmart. I can find no drivers in any directory/subdirectory.
> The Hardware installation applet looks for *.inf files. There are none.
>
> I'm now at a loss as to what to do next. The scanner is an old product, but
> it worked fine with XP. It's a great product because it scans pictures,
> slides, and negative strips.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Tom Bowen

"Tom Bowen" wrote:

> I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium. I was able to get the HP S20 scanner
> to run under XP, but I am unable to get it working with Vista. There are no
> Vista drivers on the HP site for the product.
>
> The scanner is connected via a USB port. When I run the scanner's software,
> everything looks fine, then I get the red X message dialogue that says, "No
> scanner is connected or there is a problem communicating with it." When I
> click OK, the message and the scanner's software dissapear.
>
> When I go to Control Panel and click on Scanners and Cameras it says that
> there are no scanners connected. I have downloaded the lastest (XP) software
> for the device. I click on "Have Disk" (which I don't) and browse to program
> files/HP Photosmart. I can find no drivers in any directory/subdirectory.
> The Hardware installation applet looks for *.inf files. There are none.
>
> I'm now at a loss as to what to do next. The scanner is an old product, but
> it worked fine with XP. It's a great product because it scans pictures,
> slides, and negative strips.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Tom Bowen

Tom,

I downloaded the VueScan from Ed Hamrick's website in hope of returning my
HP S20 scanner to use. I was unable to get the software to recognize the S20
scanner. When I contacted Ed's website for a fix, I was given the following
reply:

"I use an HP-provided library to talk to the S20, but the HP software
doesn't work on Vista. This means that VueScan won't work with the
S20 on Vista."

So, unless someone else can offer a solution for returning our S20 scanners
to service, we are stuck with expensive pieces of Hewlett Packard JUNK
because a greedy company will not support it's older products in an effort to
force you to buy an upgraded product for which they offer nothing comparable.
Thanks a bunch Hewlett Packard; may your fortunes dwindle!