I got a old usb Umax Astra 3400 flatbed scanner but vista won't detect it... it seems that the built in driver support for the older umax scanners has been removed from vista. I tried various downloaded drivers but none would work. As last effort installed the windows 2000 driver from my driver cd and the downloaded xp patch and plugged in the scanner and it worked... even with the old VistaScan app. The tray icon that lets you use the buttons/control the lamp crashes but everything else works. Heres how i did it.

1. Download the driver
   Version: VistaScan 3.75
2. Install the windows 2000 driver
3. Install the xp compatiblty patch
4. Plug in scanner
5. Delete the VistaAccess shortcut from the startup group
6. Test the scanner using umax's own Scanner Test program
7. Scan a document using VistaScan to make sure it fully works

Last changed: Feb 10 2011 at 12:22 AM