PaperPort mx on Windows XP
Years ago, Visioneer made a little sheetfed scanner and coupled it with software that allowed us to scan documents into electronic form. I’ve used a Compaq keyboard scanner (a PaperPort sheetfed scanner built into a keyboard) and a PaperPort mx scanner to keep electronic copies of a lot of records and data that would have otherwise filled up several file cabinets. One of the major pains of moving to Windows XP from Windows 98 was that I could not get the PaperPort scanner to work reliably under Windows XP…until today.
When I first moved to XP, I did have the scanner working using PaperPort 4. I don’t remember why it stopped; it may have been when I installed XP’s Service Pack 1. In any case, one of the major reasons why I have held onto a dual boot WindowsXP/98SE system was so I could keep using the PaperPort. That seemed a much better solution that buying one of Visioneer’s new sheetfeed scanners, especially since owners have been reporting spotty reliability and the cheapest one is $200. I needed a dual boot system anyway to run some games that simply won’t install or run under XP, so keeping it to also run the PaperPort just made sense.
Still, as easy to install and manage as Windows 98 is, I like XP better. It is a bit of a pain to have to boot into 98 just for the PaperPort when I’ve got other things to do in XP. This morning, I got the bug again to see if I could get the scanner working under XP, and it looks like I have. With some help from an old newsgroup article, that is.
If you do a search at Google, for “paperport mx windows xp” and then click on the Groups tab, you’ll find a newsgroup article posted by someone who got his PaperPort mx scanner running under Windows 2000. While I had tried his method before and it hadn’t worked for me under XP, I read the article again, analyzing what the major gist of it was. I realized that it was that the operating system had grabbed the com ports and was preventing the PaperPort drivers from accessing them. Maybe, I thought, I could use the same basic technique. I did, and got the scanner working.
First, I went to the Visioneer web site and clicked on “Drivers” under the “Support” heading on the frame on the left of the home page. Under “Strobe scanners” I selected “Ix, Vx, or MX”. On the drivers page, I downloaded the “vx002.exe” file. This is a driver patch that improves communication with older versions of PaperPort and higher speed CPU’s. Some time before, I had also clicked on the “Spare Parts” tab at the top of the Support column and ordered PaperPort 6.1. It’s on a CD that Visioneer will send to you only for the cost of shipping and handling ($9.95); this versions contains drivers for all the sheetfed scanners they had manufactured up until that time. This is the version I have loaded on my computer. Anyway, I launched the driver patch and told it to install. Frankly, it gave me an error message saying I was running NT and it didn’t need to install; and I’m not sure it did, but I think it did.
Now, according to the newsgroup article, I needed to create a conflict between the port with the PaperPort scanner and another com port on my machine. I was running the scanner on COM 1 and COM 2 was free, so I brought up XP’s Device Manager, navigated to COM 1, Properties, and then under Resources selected the address for COM2 (using manual settings). This created the conflict I was looking for. I rebooted and heard the PaperPort cycle and knew I had it. I’ve rebooted several times since then, tested it, and it still continues to work.
Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?
When I first moved to XP, I did have the scanner working using PaperPort 4. I don’t remember why it stopped; it may have been when I installed XP’s Service Pack 1. In any case, one of the major reasons why I have held onto a dual boot WindowsXP/98SE system was so I could keep using the PaperPort. That seemed a much better solution that buying one of Visioneer’s new sheetfeed scanners, especially since owners have been reporting spotty reliability and the cheapest one is $200. I needed a dual boot system anyway to run some games that simply won’t install or run under XP, so keeping it to also run the PaperPort just made sense.
Still, as easy to install and manage as Windows 98 is, I like XP better. It is a bit of a pain to have to boot into 98 just for the PaperPort when I’ve got other things to do in XP. This morning, I got the bug again to see if I could get the scanner working under XP, and it looks like I have. With some help from an old newsgroup article, that is.
If you do a search at Google, for “paperport mx windows xp” and then click on the Groups tab, you’ll find a newsgroup article posted by someone who got his PaperPort mx scanner running under Windows 2000. While I had tried his method before and it hadn’t worked for me under XP, I read the article again, analyzing what the major gist of it was. I realized that it was that the operating system had grabbed the com ports and was preventing the PaperPort drivers from accessing them. Maybe, I thought, I could use the same basic technique. I did, and got the scanner working.
First, I went to the Visioneer web site and clicked on “Drivers” under the “Support” heading on the frame on the left of the home page. Under “Strobe scanners” I selected “Ix, Vx, or MX”. On the drivers page, I downloaded the “vx002.exe” file. This is a driver patch that improves communication with older versions of PaperPort and higher speed CPU’s. Some time before, I had also clicked on the “Spare Parts” tab at the top of the Support column and ordered PaperPort 6.1. It’s on a CD that Visioneer will send to you only for the cost of shipping and handling ($9.95); this versions contains drivers for all the sheetfed scanners they had manufactured up until that time. This is the version I have loaded on my computer. Anyway, I launched the driver patch and told it to install. Frankly, it gave me an error message saying I was running NT and it didn’t need to install; and I’m not sure it did, but I think it did.
Now, according to the newsgroup article, I needed to create a conflict between the port with the PaperPort scanner and another com port on my machine. I was running the scanner on COM 1 and COM 2 was free, so I brought up XP’s Device Manager, navigated to COM 1, Properties, and then under Resources selected the address for COM2 (using manual settings). This created the conflict I was looking for. I rebooted and heard the PaperPort cycle and knew I had it. I’ve rebooted several times since then, tested it, and it still continues to work.
Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?
posted by Andy Foster at
8:46 AM
2 Comments:
Came upon yr article. Same problem, but a new dell machine with no dual boot win98 available to use my visioneer vx scanner. downlaoded software vx002 would insall but not activating scanner. Any suggestions or help appreciated.
By
Anonymous, at 4:26 PM
Hi same issues here. Any suggestions to activate this under a new Dell machine without the benefit of Win98 boot availability?
By
Gautam, at 1:18 PM
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