The victim: The Dell All-In-One Center software that lets you preview and resize scans. Without it, I can’t scan.
The perpetrator: Windows Vista Home Premium 2007, Service Pack 2, 64 bit. This thing constantly forgets the printer exists.
The accomplice: Dell Photo AIO Printer 926. Prints, copies, doesn’t scan. It doesn’t like to talk to Vista.
Two days ago I tried to scan a document, only to have it stop about a tenth of the way through and declare the printer had stopped communicating with the computer. An online search led me to Dell’s website, which gave me a .rar file to download to delete the printer completely from Vista so it could be reinstalled. The .rar worked fine, but the computer’s automatic online download system and the original installation CD got into an argument over who was going to set up the printer drivers. While trying to shut down one installation wizard, I accidentally X’ed out of the service agreement for the other.
Amazingly, the printer prints fine and copies fine. But it still won’t scan, because the All-In-One center vanished. It also killed the Dell Dock, which I finally downloaded from the people who made it. I have no idea what else may be missing.
The installation CD won’t run now, either. It lets me select Personal Installation, say yes to the License Agreement, and then Install GUI fails. Microsoft’s idea for a fix is…delete everything on the system for the last week, which gives me back the AIO without the scanner drivers. I don’t want to delete anything else, so that’s out.
Dell doesn’t have a download for the AIO center on its website. It wants me to delete the printer all over again and try to reinstall. I’m afraid of that now. God knows what might vanish on another reinstall. It prints just fine. I just want the AIO center so I can scan things as well as print them.
Is there a way to:
A) Install JUST the AIO Center from the original CD?
B) Download it from Dell, or anybody else online?
C) Work around it by scanning with some other program that might be on my computer, or easily add to it without deleting things over and over again?
Thank you.