Using the Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 in Windows 7 x64
In my quest to go paperless (a topic for another post) I purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 duplex sheet scanner. All the reviews I read before purchasing it were glowing, raving about how fast it is, how easy it is to use, etc. So I dropped $239.99 at Newegg and was excited when it came 3 days later. That excitement rapidly turned to frustration. Come to find out, the drivers don’t work very well in Windows 7 x64. As a matter of fact, you get the BSOD almost every time you try to scan something. What was I to do?
The first thing I did was hop onto Google and try to figure out if there were newer drivers. I stumbled upon this post about 64-bit drivers. I downloaded the zip, removed the 32-bit drivers that come with the S300, and installed the 64-bit drivers. It made no difference. Push the scan button, near instant BSOD. I went back and read all of the comments. Near the end a few other people had commented that they receive a BSOD in Windows 7 x64 when attempting to scan. At least it wasn’t a problem with my hardware.
The next step was to try virtualization. I already had VirtualBox and Virtual PC installed. I decided to try XP Mode in Virtual PC first (free copy of XP Pro that comes with Windows 7). I installed the 32-bit drivers as before. After a reboot of the virtual machine I opened the USB menu and attached the ScanSnap S300. After the system installed the USB virtualization drivers, along with playing a few connect/disconnect sounds, the “S” icon in the virtual machine turned blue. This was it. Would it work? I pressed the scan button and down the chute the paper went! I had it scan to PDF into a directory on my native drive that I could then import into Evernote for document management.
To sum it all up, Fujitsu has not released working drivers for the ScanSnap series for Windows 7 x64. The steps to get it working are:
- Install Virtual PC and the free XP mode image (or use your favorite virtualization environment).
- Install the drivers off the CD that accompanied your SnapScan scanner onto the virtual machine, rebooting when prompted.
- Connect the scanner. Your native OS will complain about not having drivers. Ignore it.
- Go to the USB menu and click on the scanner.
- Wait while it installs the proper drivers into your native OS. Eventually the crossed-out ScanSnap icon in the virtual machine should turn blue.
- Change the settings to save the files on your native operating system (assuming that’s where you want them).
- Scan away!
The downside of this is that you have to boot the virtual machine whenever you want to scan. You may be able to run the ScanSnap tray software in standalone XP mode without having the whole machine open. I haven’t tried it yet. I also found that the virtual machine sometimes tells me the scanner is already attached. I found rebooting the VM or switching USB ports fixes this.
Fujitsu is two steps behind the rest of the industry. This is the only piece of hardware I’ve ever had problems with in a 64-bit environment. How hard would it be for them to release x64 drivers that work in Windows 7?
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: gtd, paperless, scanner, ScanSnap, windows 7
