Scanners Supported in Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7

[Will-L]

I have a HP Scanjet 5370c running on my desktop PC with Windows XP, and am planning to upgrade to Windows 7 when released.  However, while running the Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta software to determine system compatibility, the report stated that the Scanjet 5370 is not compatible with Windows 7.  Further investigation on the HP website page entitled "Scanners Supported in Microsoft Windows Vista," it appears that my scanner is not supported in Vista either.  Does this mean that my scanner which functions great under XP has been made obsolete by lack of a driver which will run under Vista or Windows 7?  I like the Scanjet 5370c better than most newer scanners that I have seen, so it seems a real shame to throw out good equipment for lack of driver support.

[old_geekster]

Will, yes, this can happen.  Hardware manufacturers have to make decisions when new operating systems are introduced.  One of those decisions is for which existing products do they develop new drivers.  Your scanner is no doubt one of the candidates for no new drivers.  It makes sense not to perpetuate older products.  The drivers become more and more difficult to develop.

[DeniseM-Toronto · Accepted solution]

I understand your point, and it is a good one.  BUT it can cost the manufacturer sales of new scanners.

The Scanjet 400C, for example, was a very popular scanner.  By not updating it for Vista, HP turned its back on a lot of its customers. 

When I do buy a scanner to work with Windows 7, guess what?  Because of HP's behaviour, I'll be that much less likely to buy an HP one. 

I'm probably not the only person seeing things that way.

[AnneeB]

How can I trust HP with support for any future purchases - when HP just drops support for older scanner. My ScanJet 2200C worked perfectly with my 10-year old HP Pavilion (Windows Me) last week but is not compatible on brand new Windows 7 Home Premium HP Pavilion. Wish I had known that BEFORE I was loyal and bought a new HP computer. I will keep this in mind as I now have to buy a new scanner and was planning to buy a webcam and digital camera to use for graphic design. Sure WON'T be buying HP again.

[BeckerCo]

I discovered this thread during my attempt to locate the Windows 7 drivers for my Scanjet 5370C and am thankful to see HP hasn't removed it as of yet due to the negativity it concludes in reference to the lifespan of their products.  I see it is companies like HP that contribute to our wasteful society.

HP was once notorious for building rock solid systems that would last eaons.  They had a reputation for reliability and longevity in their products.  They seem to still invest well into their business server line, but when it comes down to the consumer level, it seems all they are truly interested in is selling consumables where in addition to ink and toner, consider the entire unit itself as easily replacable.

Honestly,  How difficult could it possibly be to write a generic scanner driver that could support several of their "legacy" models for Windows 7?  Perhaps it wouldn't include all of the features, but to simply scan an image and translate it into binary format...(?)  really...  From my viewpoint, there should be no question about backward compatibility.  The fact that HP and Microsoft "worked-together" to determine which HP models would have Windows 7 support makes me very skeptical.  Perhaps there will be a class action lawsuit over this ordeal and we'll each receive a $10 coupon toward the purchase of our next HP Printer or Scanner.  Can I get a woo-hoo??

[gezam]

This was a good article! To the point about HP turning it's back on customer support about their hardware (scanner) compatibility problem. Like if all we are is Cows to the Corporate World, where we work to support Industry tomake them richer and consumers become poorer and filling our dump yards with throw away obsolete products after six months of use only. Customers are loyal to a good brand, but it is not a reason to push them to keep bying New because six months old products is considered OLD.

I have two Scanners in perfectly good working order when used with OS prior to Vista and Windows 7, But I can't use it on these new OS's. Why should I invest in a New Scanner if the next line of OS will make my scanner obsolete?

[BurnedTwice]

I don't see how this is solved.  The only answer I see is that when hundreds of thousands of HP 5370 Scanjet owners upgrade their computer software to Windows 7, they'll have to trash a perfectly good scanner.  How GREEN is this?

How much time would it actually take a software engineer to write a Windows 7 driver for these units?  Is HP completely devoid of its responsibility to the environment?  This is about as UNGREEN as I could imagine.  Corporate GREED produces TONS of trash, consisting of fully functioning product.

I got burned by HP on a 'fingerprinted' hard drive on my laptop previously.  The customer support surrounding that issue was unacceptable.  In a household with 2 HP laptops, an HP scanner and an HP printer I've only learned but one lesson.  The HP laptops will be replaced by Dells and I've yet to determine whose printer and scanner I will buy, but you can be sure they will NOT be an HP product.

Fool me twice, shame on me...

[grthomps]

This is just amazing. Time to switch to another manufacturer that cares about us (cusomers) and the environment. Looking out there it's easy enough to find another manufacturer - Epson, Fujitsu, Xerox. If there is any justice HP will be out of business soon.

[AnneeeB]

Agreed. Well after finally surviving a year without a scanner; got one on my new Canon Pixma... And when it came to a choice between the Canon and an HP equivalent - guess which one I bought and why?  Ditto for new DSLR - Canon over any HP camera.

Customer service and caring about consumers wins out every time.

[gezam]

This issue is resolved by using "Windows Photo Gallery".