I have a Windows Vista laptop and my Printer/Scanner combo won't scan! It prints perfectly.

My dad's XP laptop scans perfectly, but why couldn't I?

I updated drivers, nope. I rebooted, nope.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f18/hp-desk ... can-25598/

It seems like reinstalling the drivers fixed it last time...

Personally I don't trust HP inkjets anymore, not after our 5550 died for no reason, and the replacement decided to become Shrodinger's Printer, in a quantum state of both broken and working. And now the new one (some other model) only works when it wants to. Their laser printers, on the other hand, are tanks. (We've got a 10 year old LaserJet 4000n that works like new.)

Try completely uninstalling the printer and reinstalling it form scratch.

Yes it did work last time. But now it did not work anymore.

Uninstall, reboot, install... Nope.

Uninstall, shutdown, unplug, 20 minutes, boot, install... Nope.

The only thing I can think of is a nuke. But I won't be doing that! Too time consuming.

Could you just scan with your dad's laptop and then transfer the file to yours? Sounds like it would be much easier.

I do that, but sometimes my dad uses the laptop and I have to wait.

Can you scan over a network then?

I don't know how to.

EDIT: Oh, maybe I can use the Win2000 Pentium 1 in the basement as a server.

WINDOWS 2000 ON A PENTIUM 1?!

Yep.

32 MB of RAM.

wouldn't linux make for a better server?

*pimp-slap*

No. Windows 2000 runs perfectly fine on a Pentium 1, as long as you're patient. Besides, there's nothing magical about Linux that makes it run better on old decrepit hardware than Windows, other than the fact that you can disable and remove components (which you can do on Windows) and run a 'less demanding' windowing system (again, there's BlackBox for Windows, and explorer.exe is plenty fast as it is.) Of course this is assuming you can even get the scanner working in Linux in the first place.

Never mind the fact that he probably won't be able to even get a Linux GUI going on 32 MB of RAM. (Every distro I've seen says you need 64 MB to get X and FluxBox going.) Maybe a really old copy of Slackware (the old "mountain of floppies" days) might, but it would be completely useless.

Try TWAIN acquiring images with another program.

You don't want to put the scanner on a 'server' anywhere, simply due to the fact that you're going to have to hike all the way to it to put the item you want to scan on the unit anyway, then make trips back and forth to scan with the computer, and retrieve the original.

My suggestion? Dual-boot XP, or wait for HP to update the drivers again.

Linux in general is faster and more stable than windows, especially the versions specially designed to be small, removing components only improves things. As for getting the scanner working in Linux, if its not bleeding edge, there's a high probability it would work out of the box in linux. But of course why give it a try at no cost?

Puppy Linux runs off 32 MB and has a nice GUI. Damn Small Linux, also with a GUI, runs off 16 MB.

HP Deskjet F4180 All-in-One Printer Drivers
http://printerdrives.net/hp/hp-deskjet-f4180-printer-driver-win7-vista-xp
Good luck