Nikon Scan 4 and Windows 7

<p>Has anyone out there had any success using Nikon Scan 4 and Windows 7? I just got a new computer and the files I had for NS4, when attempted to be installed, tell me that NS4 will not work with this OS.</p>

<p>Does anyone know if this has been fixed? I cannot find anything on Nikon's site or anywhere else for that matter.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>It's a scandal - really. I am in the same boat. I don't understand how Nikon can sell scanners that won;t work with the latest OS. You can use Vuescan instead of Nikonscan, but really that should not be the case,</p>

<p>Scott<br>

I have a problem very much like yours but different. I use XP 64 on my computer and Nikon never wrote drivers for there scanners for that OS. The work around that I found was to install viewscan with its drivers. Then I could install Nikon scan and it would work off of the viewscan drivers. Might work with Win 7.<br>

I kind of remember hearing something about a XP emulator in Win7 if that is the case cant you run Nikon Scan through that?</p>

<p>It is my understanding that Nikon will support Nikon Scan on Win 7 64. In the meantime, try one of the workarounds that are available:</p>

<p>http://www.colorneg.com/nikonscan64.html?lang=en</p>

<p>Both Nikon and Canon stopped making dedicated film scanners, The last Nikon scanner I got was this spring; a Nikon 9000 built in 2009. Peak buying of film scanners occurred a decade ago; so did dialup modems and CRT's too.</p>

<p>Windows 7 came out after Nikon and Canon stopped making film scanners; thus having issues to make them work with the latest OS is quite normal.</p>

<p>It really has always been this way with scanners. Here I had DOS scan wands in the mid 1980's; a 35mm slide scanner in 1989. Driver support gets harder as time goes on; to make it work in uncharted waters requires futzing by somebody.</p>

<p>This is really nothing new; it existed in the DOS era. Some of my DOS scanners never would run under windows; even with massive futzing; PIF files.</p>

<p>Here in professional scanning for the public; I tend to use just an older OS that works with scanners. The newer OS usually buys one nothing; can be slower; often has issues; often requires all sorts of futzing. Since amateurs have gobs of time; then can try to get a 1999 Nikon scanner running on Windows 8; or Apple Lion in 2012. Here I often just use old win2000 or XP and press on; having spent many many man months with futzing.</p>

<p>The new old stock Nikon 9000 came out about 8 years ago; 7.5 years ago it supported</p>

<p>win98/win98se/me/NT4/2000/XP</p>

<p>Windows 7 is two more OS's past XP; remember VISTA?</p>

<p>'I kind of remember hearing something about a XP emulator in Win7 if that is the case cant you run Nikon Scan through that?'</p>

<p>Might be worth a try, but it's only included in Win7 if you have Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate:<br>

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx<br>

Other VM packages are available, but you'll need a separate copy of XP to run on them.</p>

<p>A search on photo.net using the exact title of this posting will uncover many pages of success stories - trust me, the work-arounds when done correctly do work. Nikon Scan runs perfectly under Win 7 64-bit using the simple driver patch described.</p>

<p>"Both Nikon and Canon stopped making dedicated film scanners, The last Nikon scanner I got was this spring; a Nikon 9000 built in 2009. Peak buying of film scanners occurred a decade ago; so did dialup modems and CRT's too."</p>

<p>Not true. The CS9000 ED is still listed on Nikon's web site. Also several people have posted on Flikr that they've very recently purchased new Nikon scanners. Availability is spotty, though, as Nikon makes them in batches.</p>

<p>People have been claiming fr several years that Nikon scanners are out o production - but no one from Nikon has made an official announcement.</p>

<p><em>It's a scandal - really. I am in the same boat. I don't understand how Nikon can sell scanners that won;t work with the latest OS.</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

The situation is that when an accessory device is put on market, the device mfgr makes drivers and high level software for existing OS's, not for non-existant OS's (ie, future OS's). When that scanner was marketed, Win 7 was still in the future.</p>

<p>The device mfgr makes a business decision whether or not to produce a new set of low-level drivers that will plug into the new OS, in this case, Win 7. And the high-level software developers make decisions on whether or not to convert their progs to run on new OS's.</p>

<p>In order to run your old scanner on your new OS pc, you have to get a new set of scanner drivers from the mfgr, and those drivers have to be the right ones for that model scanner and written for that new OS. That's the first piece. Then you have to get a high level scanner app that is compatible with the new OS. That's the second piece.</p>

<p>A work-around is to set up a 2nd pc as a dedicated scan-station, let it run the (good) old OS, install the old scanner and old software on it, and use it to scan the pics. Save the images to the hard drive, copy them to a 4GB (or larger) flash-drive (thumb-drive) and then transfer them to the main PC running the new OS. More work, I know, but it will allow you to keep using your existing scanner for now.</p>

<p>Nikon specifically states that Nikonscan will not work under Windows 7 nor any 64 bit operating system. Windows does have a free virtual window which loads XP and most XP software, but has limited access to the hardware layer. For example, you can't connect a printer to the Win 7 computer and run it in the XP window with XP drivers.</p>

<p>Both Vuescan and Silverfast AI are compatible with Win 7 (64), and have drivers for the Nikon scanners. That is your only option for the forseeable future.</p>

<p>Nikon is apparently selling scanners from current inventory, with no intention of resuming production once the supply is exhausted. LS-9000 has outlasted the others because it is expensive and relatively few people use medium format film. The decline of film's popularity and the inroads of cheap flatbed scanners, good enough for web quality and 8x10s has eroded the market beyond the tipping point.</p>

<p>I followed instructions on this site and now my Nikon 9000 scanner is working great on a Windows 7 Professional 64 bit PC using Nikon Scan 4.0.3.<br>

<a href="http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/44994-getting-your-nikon-coolscan-work-w7-x64.html">http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/44994-getting-your-nikon-coolscan-work-w7-x64.html</a><br>

I think it may also work with Vista 64 bit, but I don't have Vista.</p>

<p>I use Nikon Scan 4.0.3 under Windows7 x64 and a Coolscan V; it will also work with a Coolscan 5000. But first you need to install VueScan.</p>

<p>1) Get VueScan here <a href="http://www.hamrick.com/index.html">http://www.hamrick.com/index.html</a> and install it.</p>

<p>2) Get NikonScan 4.0.3 here: <a href="http://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61/session/L2F2LzEvc2lkL1pCT2JEWjZr#Anchor-7">http://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61/session/L2F2LzEvc2lkL1pCT2JEWjZr#Anchor-7</a><br>

Ignore the note that it is for Vista only.</p>

<p>3) Install NikonScan 4.0.3, but <strong>do not intall the driver. </strong>Not installing the driver is an option during the NikonScan install process. Nikon Scan will use the VueScan driver.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Good info about the vuescan driver, but just to add this:<br>

I hold licence for viewscan as well as Nikon and Silverfast but liked the vuescan software best with very few exceptions of film and individual images.</p>

<p>One of the reasons for the unpopularity of high-resolution scanning is the time it takes (minutes per image). To digitize 35mm film I would think a D3X and e.g. a 75mm Apo-Rodagon-D would be a good way, scanning time reduced to a fraction of a second. I guess a PB-6 and slide holder would work for this. Better lenses may exist that were made for the printing industry but they'd probably sell for thousands.</p>

<p>For medium format film, the problem is that its tonality would then be reduced to what a D3X can produce, also detail would be lost. The LS-9000 (with a glass carrier) is an exceptionally economical way of obtaining very good medium format scans. It's quite amazing what it can do from 6x7 black and white slides (dr5) and negatives (e.g. C-41). Unfortunately in this age people do not have the patience for scanning. A good way to make your medium format camera look bad is to try e.g. an Epson scanner on it - a D70 produces images of better quality than MF film scanned on a 4990.I am a little surprised how many settle for D70 quality scans of film shot with their their ultra-expensive medium format cameras.</p>

<p>I would speculate that a 40 MP Pentax with the said Rodenstock lens would be a good starting point for fast scanning of MF film. The lens is exceptionally able at around 1:1 and covers 6x7 film so you could use even bigger sensors for it. Other than that, the LS-9000 is a good alternative to those with the patience to wait for the scanner.</p>

<p>Personally I think when I can afford a D3X (maybe Oct '10) I will sell my Mamiya 7 and LS-9000 to someone who needs them (this camera is still used in some schools for black and white work and the scanner is excellent), and then start working on the slide / neg digitization process using the "X". Nikon Scan has quite nice colour algorithm for color negatives; the GEM algorithm works nicely on the grain and it may not be straightforward to get that kind of results incl. colour accuracy using my own code, so I will have to scan all my 6x7 color negatives before selling the scanner. Slides I believe I can do myself and I'll keep the 35mm coolscan indefinitely as I have so much 35mm film that will take years to digitize. I'm waiting to become more selective as to what is worth scanning and so reduce the load. ;-)</p>

 

<p>Robert,</p>

<p>I am curious where you learned that Nikon would update its Nikon Scan to be compatible with Win 7 64 bit? I tried to call Nikon Canada this morning to confirm this but the rep told me that Nikon haven't planned to update the software. It could be that he is not aware of what is going on in Japan or US though.</p>

<p>The reason why I am interested in this is that I also just got a new computer with Win 7 64 bit last night and have struggled but failed to install the drivers and Nikon Scan for my Coolscan 9000. I tried at least three different approaches I found on website, a couple of them use the Scanners.info file, while the last one asked me to install Silverfast first and then Nikonscan.</p>

<p>In all cases, I didn't encounter any problem/error message when installing the driver. however, when I installed the Nikon Scan and tried to open it, the software just froze at the opening stage. I tried to open the Silverfast demo version and it works fine and can detect my Coolscan 9000. I didn't have time to test the scan though as I am not familiar with Silverfast at all.</p>

<p>Is my problem still the Driver problem? Or is it a compatibility problem between nikon scan 4.03 and Win 7?</p>

<p>I will try the method on Colorneg site tonight. Hopefully it would work. By the way, I use its Colorperfect software for the convert color negative scans and it is great!!!</p>

<p>I can't believe that the method detailed here won't work. It works for me on Vista and Win7 x64 systems:<br>

<A HREF="http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00Ryck">Unoffical Vista X64 driver of LS-8000ED/9000ED for Nikon Scan 4.03</A></p>