Scanner and webcam unusable with Windows 7!

I am most annoyed that my scanner, and also the webcam on my laptop appear to be unusable now that I have installed Windows 7 Home Premium on each machine.

The scanner, a Genius ColorPage HR7X Slim, is about 3 years old and in perfect working order; it was running on XP.

The webcam was already installed on my Acer laptop, running Vista as the time of purchase.

It seems that drivers are not available for these items to run on Windows 7.

I am seriously thinking of going back to my previous operating systems.

Has anyone any ideas how I can get my scanner and webcam working again, please?

It would help if you listed the name / model of your laptop.

You could also try using the vista versions of the drivers for your webcam from the Acer site

Sorry, forgot to say that the laptop is Acer Aspire 9301AWSMi.

I have an Acer 7720 laptop that was upgraded from Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 32 bit. The web cam still works without problems. No additional drivers were needed other than the original Vista driver.

Here is a Vista driver download, that I found doing a google search. It should work for Win 7. GENIUS ColorPage-HR7X Slim Driver

Thanks Firberd
I downloaded the GENIUS ColorPage-HR7X Slim Driver but when I had run the installation and restarted the machine, it said 'Scanner not found'

Re the webcam,
"The web cam still works without problems. No additional drivers were needed other than the original Vista driver."

It just doesn't work - it says there is no webcam installed.
The original Vista cab files are still on the D:\ drive of the laptop but I have no idea how to find the drivers for the webcam. Can you help, please?

Hi there
this is a perfect case of using a Virtual machine.

The scanner will work fine in an XP virtual machine.

For the webcam there are a lot of generic drivers that probably will work on W7 - I think you need to google a bit for those. Otherwise you can run that from the XP Virtual machine as well.

Cheers
jimbo

Thank you Jimbo.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how to use an XP virtual machine. I thought that it was something which required the Professional edition - I have Windows 7 Home Premium and had XP Home before that.

If it is possible on my PC, can you give me some instructions how to achieve it, please?

I will try Google for something to get the webcam working on my laptop.

Hi there
just download vmare player or vbox. (both FREE).
install it and then run the "Create Virtual Machine Wizard".

This will install your XP system -- you need the XP install disk.

Once your OS is installed just start your Virtual Machine software - then you'll be presented with your standard XP logon screen. Switch to full screen and you've now got a fully working XP system.

This will run quite happily on Windows 7 Home edition.


After first boot of your VM run the "Install vmware tools" or I think in VBOX it's called "Additions". These add things like Sound driver, optimize the mouse and graphics etc etc.

Plug your USB devices in - and install the drivers just like as on a real machine.

There's plenty of info on the VIRTUALISATION section on the Forum.

Don't give your XP VM more than say 640 MB if you only need the scanner etc.

Cheers
jimbo

That all sounds interesting, Jimbo.

I am a bit puzzled about reinstalling XP - doesn't that mean dual booting or something - and will putting XP back on take up lots of space?

Sorry if I am being a bit dim - a bit of a novice at this1

Hi Jimbo (or anyone else who may be able to help!

I have installed and run vmware and it's fine. Windows XP opens up and works really well.

I installed the software via the CD which came with my scanner, rebooted and got the message "Scanner not found".

I have disconnected, reconnected the scanner, uninstalled and reinstalled the software several times but still the same message.

I know that the scanner is connected to the mains and the USB port and cannot think what the problem can be. The scanner was in perfect working order last week before I installed Windows 7

Any ideas, please?

Hi try installing the drivers this way.

Compatibility Modehttp://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/316-compatibility-mode.html?ltr=C

Hi, I had the same problem with my 7 yr old Epson scanner - no drivers, no support for 64 bit. XP compatibility mode does not work either. I solved this by downloading (and buying) VueScan. They let you try it out for free. I am happy with it.

Re: Genius ColorPage HR7X Slim scanner

I think I shall have to buy new scanner.

I have tried all your suggestions and various other software progams which say that they can be used with scanners which were bought for XP - without success.

Thanks for all your help.

Just as an update. I have my scanner working now. I downloaded the drivers for Vista and ran in XP Compatibility Mode.

Thanks again for all your help.