Replacement Scanning Software

[Steve Rindsberg]

>> I have a Brother MFC-8840DN printer/scanner/fax machine. It came with bundled scanner software, in particular ScanSoft PaperPort SE version 9. I found that under W98, the software was actually more robust than under XP Pro SP2. For example, under XP, I cannot set 8.5x11 as the default page size, nor can I establish a custom page size.

Do you log on as an administrator or Power User, or as an ordinary user? If you don't have read/write privileges to the section of the registry or whatever directory the software keeps its config files in, what you're seeing would likely be the result. If it's a file/directory permissions issue, you can sometimes reinstall the software to a directory you DO Have permissions to write to.

>> I purchased Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard in part because I thought it would provide its own driver for the Brother 8840

Almost no software other than the manufacturer's own provides scanner drivers for any scanners. Instead, software uses the TWAIN driver provided by the scanner manufacturer.