Canon LiDE 25 scanner with Windows 7

I don't scan much, perhaps once a month and I have had a Canon Lide 25 colour flatbed scanner since the start of 2007. I have always used it with our Windows XP PC but I'm hoping to retire this shortly (none too soon you might say). One barrier to this retirement has been the scanner.

So...

I tried plugging it in to the Windows 7 PC and no driver found.

Somewhat annoying. A bit of a Google suggested trying drivers for other scanners but that got me nowhere. In a couple of places I saw suggestions of alternative drivers by Hamrick.

Their website is a bit "pushy" in that it tries to download the drivers as soon as you look around but forgiving them that I thought I would give them a try.

I downloaded the driver and installed it (using an admin account).

I plugged in the scanner and still no scanner was found.

I then ran the installer again, and it found the scanner (albeit called LiDE 30) and everything works.

After you scan for the first time it points out that scans are watermarked and will be until you pay up, but it will be $30 not $40 if you do so within the hour.

As it worked I thought I would go for the $30 option rather than buy a new scanner and landfill the old one.

Also, in my view, Hamrick were more deserving of $30 for supporting my hardware as against Canon who didn't and wanted to sell a new one.

In my view, the software is better than the old XP Canon version and scans to JPEG, PDF or TIFF.

The remaining annoyance is that having had $30, it still offers "advanced" features for more money.

All in all, it seems to have been worth the money so far.

www.hamrick.com