The first flatbed scanner I purchased was a Microtek brand, I'm guessing about a dozen years ago. I was running Windows ME (Millennium, remember that short-lived OS?) at the time and the Microtek scanner worked like a charm. Of course, as is the way of all things technical, I decided to upgrade to Windows XP in 2005.I purchased the XP system discs and, with the help of my friend Randy (the same person who helped me design my first desktop years earlier, which I wrote about here), I wiped the hard drive and installed Windows XP. I then spent the next two days installing all my software and hardware. Around the end of day two the OS started behaving badly and I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I'll admit I was in a hurry to get the new system up and running, and I didn't keep track of what I installed when, I didn't create restore points, and I didn't test the system after each install. Silly me.... So, back to square one: I wiped the hard drive myself and reinstalled XP, and began the arduous task of installing hardware and software correctly. I created a restore point before each install, I rebooted and tested the system after each install, and I kept a running list of what I installed at each point. Instead of two days, this "best practice" process took me about four days -- at which point everything started behaving flaky again. After some investigation, reverting to restore points, reinstalling some things yet again, I determined that the Microtek driver for the scanner was crashing XP.
I clicked on over to the Microtek website only to discover that they did not support Windows XP on this particular scanner; I guess their developers were too bloody lazy to update the Windows ME driver -- but I bet they sure would like to sell me a new scanner that works under Windows XP! What we call built-in obsolescence! Well, if I'm going to have to dump a perfectly good, working scanner to buy a new one that works with Windows XP, I certainly will not give any more money to Microtek. You would think these corp. idiots would learn....
So after some research I purchased a Canon CanoScan 4200F flatbed scanner -- which is even better than the Microtek and has served me far longer. The beauty of this CanoScan is the hinged lid that allows you to place an open book face down on the glass and still be able to place the lid on the book. I used this scanner with Nuance's OmniPage Professional -- first OmniPage Pro 12, then I upgraded to 14, then 16, then 17, and finally 18. (Note: Version 18 has a lot of glitches at startup which Nuance has simply refused to address (or even respond to on their own community forum) since they've now moved on to an even bigger and better version -- and because of this, my days of upgrading have ceased with version 18. These tech companies can really be a pain in the behind.) I've been using one version or another of OmniPage Pro and the CanoScan scanner for nearly ten years. The scanner has performed flawlessly.
