Vista - Epson 1200U problem in Vista Ultimate

Hi, my great little Epson 1200U scanner won't install in Vista Ultimate.
Epson does not have a driver for Vista. The "fix" that is floating around
the Internet (disconnect scanner, download latest XP driver, unzip contents,
access properties in the setup.exe progam, check the XP SP2 compatibility
box, run setup.exe, plug in scanner, praying to the computer gods) does not
work in Ultimate. Vista detects the scanner and starts installing the
drivers, but says there is an error installing the drivers because it
couldn't find a file. It doesn't say what file it couldn't find. Does
anyone have advice, another workaround or ??? I really don't want to have to
buy a new scanner...help!