Connecting to Slimscan

[kthr33]

About a year ago I bought a new computer. I was not able to find my discs for the scanner or Photo Impact. I bought a cute little HP scanner for work and have been using it but would now like to get my Microtek Slimscan C3 USB working here at home. The drivers for the Slimscan (Scanwizard) have been downloaded from Microtek and installed. Microtek advised that the Scanwizard software I downloaded from their site to drive my Slimscan is not a stand-alone application and must be used in conjunction with an image-editing or OCR application and suggested IrfanView as a good match for Scanwizard. IrfanView for XP ver 4.20 has now been downloaded, but I cannot figure out how to make Scanwizard and IrfanView work together so I can scan with my Slimscan. Any advice or suggestions anyone would care to offer about this would be greatly appreciated. And please be gentle, I am not very compuliterate. Thanks, K.

[matera]

Open IrfanView.

From the File menu, choose Select TWAIN source. If your scanner is shown in the dialog window that comes up, highlight it and click the Select button. You are 85% there.

File menu again, choose Acquire/batch scanning (or use the keyboard, Ctrl+Shift+A).

Now I can't tell you what you will see next, because I have a different scanner. If you get a can't-connect message, do check your cables etc. But with mine it always does that the first time, and then I hit the Ctrl+Shift+A again and up pops my =scanner dialog. That's just to let you know that there can be surprises behind the surprises.

If you can't get past this step, give us all the details (repeat the disappointment until you can tell the complete story by heart lol) and we will try to think of more things to do.

[kthr33]

Thank You Matera, I will try that as soon as I get home tonight. K.

[kthr33]

I finally found time to try the procedure you described. What I did and the result: File - Select twain Source - Hilite WA-Slimscan C3U - Select - File - Aquire/Batch Scanning Setup - Aquire Method , Single Image, Close Twain - OK = Twain error! Can't connect to device or Twain driver is not installed!. I went back and reinstalled the Slimscan Drivers and tried again. The result was the same? The drivers are being installed by clicking Setup.exe and following the prompts on the Install Wizard. Any ideas of what I am doing wrong? Thanks, K.

[Sjef]

You could try Xnview (free) which is a kind of IrfanView clone. If this is the second application that can't get to your twain driver, there is possibly something else to look for.

[matera]

Did you try doing it twice? As I mentioned, it never works the first time with mine. I have to make the request twice. The first time, I get exactly those error messages. I patiently click them off and ask again to scan (no need to select the source again). The second time, my scanner lights up and everything is fine.

It sometimes pays to bang one's head twice against the same wall

[kthr33]

First Sjef and Matera, Thank You for your patience. I am finally back to my scanner. With your help I am able to bring up the Preview and Untitled Job windows. The Preview and Scan buttons are grayed out. When I checked the Scanner List window, there is nothing listed in the 0-6 list. Whenever I plug in the scanner (the on/off switch has never worked) the "be-bumb" tone sounds and the green light is on and steady. In the past, with other hardware the "be-bump" means Windows recognizes the hardware and a display would show. Nothing comes up on the screen from the "be-bump" for the scanner. Apparently IrfanView is still not recognizing the scanner. Any ideas of what I have missed/done wrong? Thanks, K.

[matera]

Have you rebooted recently? If not, it might help. Do you have something in your Start Menu for the Scanwizard? Something called Scanner test?

Do you have Word (MS Office) installed? Can you scan from Word? (Insert -> picture -> from scanner) Try MS Paint? My scanner seems to like them better than IrfanView, even though I disagree with it (LOL - if all else fails, try Microsoft)

[Sjef]

Could you search for the file Twain.log after trying to scan with IrfanView?

This log-file should be in a Temp folder.
If your scanner is recoqnized by IrfanView, some kind of Microtek scanner's interface should appear on the screen and after scanning the Twain.log file should have these data (amongst other data):
TWAIN_32.DLL - MESSAGE - CTWTRACE--IrfanView(45) to CanoScan 5200F(46):
and:
TWAIN_32.DLL - MESSAGE - CTWTRACE--CanoScan 5200F(46) to IrfanView(45):
(where CanoScan must of course be Microtek)
I wonder what data is in your Twain.log file after trying to scan.

Are you shure of having installed the proper scannerdriver?

[kthr33]

Problem Fixed

About 2 weeks ago I posted here about the trouble I was having getting IrfanView to work with my Microtek Slimscan C3. I finally solved my problem. First a little background... During the days of Windows 98 I purchased a Slimscan C3 USB. It has been a wonderful tool - until a little over a year ago. That is when I replaced my computer with a newer model and updated to Windows XP and my Slimscan quit working. Over this past year and a half I have downloaded drivers, programs, received advice from several forums, redownloaded drivers and programs, joined new forums... all to no avail. Yesterday I finally gave in. The Slimscan is now gone and an HP is in its place. I have bitterly learned my lesson - Buying Off Brand can be a bad thing. I cannot say I will never buy Microtek again for home or work, but I will avoid it with a passion. All of the above must be tempered with a big Thanks to all in this forum for all their patience and effort. I truly suspect the main problem in this entire matter is my compuliteracy, or rather the lack thereof. None the less, the only solution I was able to make work within my relm of compuliteracy was to replace the Slimscan. Again, Thanks All. K.

[matera]

Old and new often don't mix. I retired a very bad camera when I moved to XP. I don't miss it

[Mij]

Sadly though buying well known branded products is not always a solution. I had to retire several pieces of such hardware (one by HP) when I moved from Win98 to Vista. Like Matera I soon got to appreciate the replacements.

[Skippybox]

Who doesn't like something new? It is still a scheme to make users upgrade, though. Why should you have to replace all your devices at the same time just because you need a new computer?

[matera]

My very bad camera was a well-known brand too -- I'm just ashamed to say more LOL

[Skippybox]

So do we start naming brands until you blush?

Happy Birthday!