Laurie, Bummer on the Powerlook II. In general, I agree with everything you wrote below. In this particular case, I got lucky. I did research the site before I bought and found a Magicscan upgrade version that was XP compatible. I had actually been shopping for a scanner for contact sheets for awhile. I didn't want to put the $$$ in for a new Epson 1680. I narrowed my choice to either a used Epson 1600 or a new or used PLIII. I did take note that, for the longest, Umax's site stated that their scanners were not XP compatible. Totally amazing to me that they were that slow in upgrading. I bid on 1-2 epsons and did not bid on Powerlooks until I knew they had compatible software. Of course, I knew that I could use Vuescan or (gulp) buy Silverfast. Have you tried Vuescan with your PLII?
The problem with the old firmware in PLIII's with XP was that it caused multiple device manager entries for the scanner. The new Magicscan and a registry fix on the Umax site caused my scanner to be listed properly without the new firmware. Lloyd -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Laurie Solomon Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 11:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] RE: Umax experience Lloyd, I have a Umax Powerlook II, which I like very much; but I have had problems getting it to function in twain mode under Windows XP when using upgraded Magicscan and Binuscan software. Upon checking the Umax web sight, I found no upgrades for that scanner when it came to software that would work with Win XP; a call to Umax did not help either. They suggested trying the Win 2000 upgrade which enabled the MagicScan twain to work so that the scanner could be used; but the Binuscan PhotoPerfect portion did not work. Moreover, for some reason, the MagicScan twain would not work with programs such as OmniPage and OmniForm. My point is that your experience seems to indicate that, as is often the case with many support staffs, they really do not always know what they are talking about when they give advice. In your case as in mine, it was not the scanner hardware or firmware that would not work with WinXP but the damn software, which they do not really keep up todate in terms of upgrading and which the web site is totally ineffective in providing good substantive information on. Their sight when it comes to support and upgrade information is lacking. Their telephone support service can be expensive as pointed out and generally not all that helpful even if you get through, despite the fact that the personnel may be very nice to deal with and attempt to be helpful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
