Unable to scan: Cannot find the Scan Icon or HP Smart is missing from your Desktop

[BeemerBiker]

Is the Scan icon or HP Smart missing from your desktop?

Possibly the printer driver is missing the scanning application.

You will need to find the HP page for your printer and download either the full feature driver or the scan driver. 

Click on this link and enter the name or Product ID of your printer.  After selecting your printer, visit the software page to download the appropriate driver.  While there you might look for other software such as firmware upgrade, or OCR software that does optical recognition. 

After installing the full feature or scan  package, click the windows key and select all apps.

Look for All Apps.

A list of applications will show up in alphabetical order.

Look for HP Scan and HP Smart

If HP scan is not present then use HP Smart.  You can obtain HP Smart from the Microsoft store if needed, or if you want the newest version. You will have to sign into HP Smart using your HP account the first time you use it. The latest version as of Jun, 2024 is 154.2.1072.0 (USA English). If you do not have this version then go to the Microsoft store, find HP Smart, and click "update".  If the button "update" is missing then you need to run WSRESET from the Windows search bar.

To put HP Smart (or HP Scan) on the desktop:

For Windows 10, click Start. For Windows 11, click Start and click All apps. This will show (see above) a list of all apps you have installed in Windows. Find the target app from the list and drag and pull the app from the Start menu to your desktop. This will create a desktop shortcut for the app installed from Microsoft Store.
The following video is an example of how to put an app on the desktop.
This is a video for the support assistant desktop icon

The video shows how to add an app to the desktop so it shows as an ICON to click on.