When I no longer had my expensive scanner, I remembered I had hidden away in the house somewhere an old Visioneer scanner. I no longer had the software for the Visioneer scanner, and the software I once had for it is now outdated. I thought the Visioneer scanner was useless, and I was close to throwing it into the garbage. But, then I had an idea, and thought maybe if I searched online, I could somehow get a download for it, and hopefully, a free download. So, without being a computer expert or a complete wiz on the computer, I figured that I could go online and search for software downloads at the website of the company I bought the scanner from years ago, and surprisingly, I found the exact download (which was one driver). I then wondered if I would have to pay for it, but I found that I didn’t at all have to pay for it. The driver download was completely free, so I downloaded it hoping it would work.
After downloading the driver, I hooked up my old scanner to the default scanner feature on my computer, hoping the driver would make my Visioneer work again. I thought to myself pessimistically, “Oh, this isn’t going to work…”, but I kept trying, and to my surprise it worked. Now, I like the old Visioneer scanner better than my expensive one. Since it is an older version, it is less complicated to use, it scans faster now with the new driver, and it is less complicated to sift through its files as a result of it being very simplistic.
The fun part of all this, is I managed to set-up the old scanner without spending a penny on software or any other equipment. I used an old cord I had forgotten went to this old Visioneer, and delighted that it was the right one after I plugged it in, I realized I would not even need to buy new cords for it. The whole process of setting up the old scanner was free on a night in which I desperately needed a scanner. Now, I know how important it is to improvise, and not give up, when there could be an alternative way to make something work. I was going to throw away this scanner. Now, I regret my pessimism about this scanner. It’s actually a wonderful scanner and much easier to use than the expensive, complicated scanner I once had.
Here is the process I went through to find software for my old, end-of-life Visioneer scanner, which is a Visioneer One Touch 5800:
First,I searched all over online until I found this particular Visioneer website at (http://support.visioneer.com/products/home/EOL/5800/downloads.asp),
which was hard, because it was the only Visioneer website I could find that had the particular driver I needed; I could not find a driver or a download for the Visioneer scanner anywhere else, and I searched for awhile before finding the above website. I did not need any extra software with the driver.
Next, I found my Windows XP default scanner feature, which is accessible if you follow the steps below:
1) Go to the ‘start menu’
2) Click on ‘programs’
3) Click on ‘Microsoft Office Tools
4) Click on ‘Microsoft Office Document Scanning’.
‘Microsoft Office Document’ scanning is the default windows scanner feature. After I installed the driver, I added my old scanner to my computer as ‘new hardware’, and the driver was found by the ‘add hardware wizard’ in its browse feature, and amazingly, it worked.
This is how I added my old scanner as ‘new hardware” after installing the driver:
Note: You must first install the driver download before adding the scanner as ‘new hardware’, or else the ‘add hardware wizard’ will not find the driver.
To add the scanner as ‘new hardware’:
1) Plug the scanner into the USB port, or whatever connection that it can connect to on your computer.
2) Go to ‘control panel’. Open the control panel
3) Click on ‘printers and hardware’
4) When the ‘printers and hardware’ screen comes up, go to the left of the screen, and click on ‘add hardware’. A dialog box will pop up, which is the ‘add hardware wizard’
5) Follow the prompts in the wizard to hook up the scanner. The add hardware wizard should detect the new driver.
After your scanner is hooked up and accepted as new hardware, you can go into ‘Microsoft Office Document Scanning’ and right click on its icon in the start menu-where I mentioned how to get to above. Add ‘Microsoft Office Document Scanning’ as a shortcut to the desktop. This shortcut is your makeshift scanner program, and when you click on it, it should bring up a small, simple scanner menu that will say ‘scan’ on it. This is your new scanner function. Have fun.
Note: See the image with this article. It is an image I scanned from my old Visioneer scanner. I changed the default file format of .tiff to .gif, and then was able to upload it.
Reference:
- Visioneer driver downloads: support.visioneer.com/drivers/5800.exe
