I recently purchased a scanner. Installation went fine, but when I try to use one of the programs that came with it (it converts scanned text into editable text), I find that my computer has some default setting to a webcam (no longer hooked up to this computer) that it’s looking for instead. Where can I remove the reference to this webcam so the application will look in the right place? Thanks!
Right-click My Computer, hit Properties, click the Device Manager tab, and look for the webcam. If it’s there, select it and hit Remove.
Thanks, Number, but scanners weren’t listed under the Device Manager.
I’m assuming that the scanner and webcam were USB. Look under that category in Device Manager. You’ll probably find it there.
No, really. I looked in every category. Neither the scanner nor the webcam are there. (The scanner is USB; I don’t remember what the webcam was, because it didn’t work and I returned it.)
Remember, Windoze is made by Microshaft, so you have to stop making sense to figure things out.
Try this:
Reboot into safe mode (hold down the CTRL key while booting, then choose “safe mode” from menu).
Then go to Device Manager the same way. You might see more hardware listed than in normal Windoze mode. If you see any hardware listed that you know you don’t have, just remove them and reboot.
It’s a good idea to look in every category. It’s not uncommon to see several monitors listed, for example.
Let us know if this works.
Re the webcam
1: Go to install/remove porgrams under control panel and remove any programs or deice driver installs referring specifically to this device.
2: Re your programs most image programs will “stick” to the last device chosen as the default image source. You should have a section called “Select scanner source” or similar in most image editing programs. Just choose the scanner as the source and should stay there until you change the default.
Barney, I did try that, and the scanner did appear in Safe Mode. Unfortunately, the webcam didn’t.
Astro nailed it, though – I feel dumb for not checking to see if I could change the preference within the program itself (doh!). I has just assumed it would be a system issue.
It’s fixed now. Thanks everyone!