Success with Agfa SnapScan 1236s Scanner [long]

I just thought I would post here to report that I have just had success
installing and using my old Agfa SnapScan 1236 SCSI scanner on Windows
Ultimate 32-bit. I will also keep a copy here:

http://www.sanders.demon.co.uk/VistaAgfaSnapScan.html

It may be that others here can use the same technique to make their own
device install properly.

If you don't have the driver file for this scanner, well it used to be
available from:

http://static.agfa.com/digicam_scanner_drivers/

But that no longer lists the SCSI 1236s, only the USB 1236u. However,
that web page links to an Agfa ftp site & the 1236s file is still there:

ftp://ftp.agfa.be/DRIVERS/softpack/s....0.9-1236s.exe

If you don't manage to find it there, you may be able to get it
elsewhere, its md5 is: 7341ce6f2c3a4fe0e28baee13f880925 .

For what it's worth, I have my scanner plugged into an Adaptec AHA-2940
PCI SCSI card.

When I first tried to install it, the SnapScan program was installed,
but when I tried to run the program it constantly complained that the
scanner was not switched on & would go no further.

I checked in the Device Manager & found that the SnapScan was listed as
an "unsupported devices", or some such.

I tried to update the driver over the web, but after a long delay it
failed, saying, I think "file not found".

Looking in c:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log I found:

2007-10-27 13:20:05:050 1184 cd8 Agent *
Criteria = "Type='Driver' and DriverMatch='Best' and
DeviceInstance='SCSI\SCANNER&VEN_AGFA&PROD_SNAPSCAN_1236&REV_1.50
\5&3A56036E&0&000500'"

followed a while later by:

2007-10-27 13:23:04:862 2684 b68 CDM WARNING:
CCdm::ExecuteSearchForOneDriverUpdate failed, error = 0x80240024
2007-10-27 13:23:04:862 2684 b68 CDM WARNING:
CCdm::FindMatchingDriver failed, error = 0x80240024
2007-10-27 13:23:04:862 2684 b68 CDM WARNING:
FindMatchingDriver failed, error = 0x80240024

So there was no matching driver online :-(

Looking in: c:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log I found:

!!! flq: Error installing file
(0x00000002)
!!! flq: Error 2: The system
cannot find the file specified.
! flq: SourceFile -
'c:\windows\inf\DRIVERS\STI\message.ini'
! flq: TargetFile -
'C:\Users\Dave\{0aa1704c-1547-4c2e-a6b4-8241eea6ddbc}\DRIVERS\STI
\message.ini'
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_COPYERROR}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_COPYERROR
- returned 0x00000000}
!!! flq: SPFILENOTIFY_COPYERROR:
returned FILEOP_ABORT.
!!! flq: Error 2: The system
cannot find the file specified.
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_ENDCOPY}

So the device installation failed trying to copy Agfa files from
c:\windows\inf\DRIVERS\STI .

So I looked at what was contained in the self extracting .exe . It was
installed using InstallShield PackageForTheWeb. Running that again it
unpacked then prompted for the setup language. At that point I browsed
my temporary directory & saw a pftAFF9~tmp directory had just been
created. Within that was a Drivers directory, with an STI directory
etc..

So I then copied the drivers directory for the into the Windows\inf
directory. I could then cancel the install, of course. (I used a command
prompt run as administrator to do an xcopy /s )

Then back in the Device Manager I went to the SnapScan & updated the
driver again, this time it worked & my SnapScan was listed in Device
Manager under Imaging Devices.

I could then delete the Devices directory from inf.

Now when I ran the ScanWise application, it would just silently exit
without doing anything. However, when I tried again, this time running
ScanWise as Administrator, it worked & I was able to scan an image.

I do not get the scanner listed by Windows Photo Gallery, but I don't
really care. I can use it with ScanWise - albeit only as Administrator.

It may be that a simple change could make the scanner visible to WIndows
Photo Gallery. It may be that ACL: changes would allow ScanWise to work
without being run as Administrator. Finally, it may be possible to
amend one of the .inf files so that it is not necessary to copy the
whole directory into inf, earlier in setupapi.dev.log I saw warnings
saying:

! sto: Warning: Media id for file
message.ini is not listed in any SourceDisksNames section.

But I probably won't get to fix any of those things myself.

Good luck
--
Dave English
http://www.sanders.demon.co.uk