A couple years ago I bought a Genius ColorPage ColorPage HR6 scanner, which worked pretty well under Windows 98. Since I installed Windows XP though, I’ve been unable to use this scanner and every couple months when I need to scan something I’ve been forced to attach it to my laptop (running Windows 2000 Pro). Today someone asked me to email them something and before hauling out my laptop I spent 15 minutes on Google and finally have the scanner working! For anyone who owns this scanner, here’s how to set it up…
1. Google has cached the downloads page from geniusnet.com.tw, and lists this file as the driver for Windows 9X/ME/NT/2000/XP (dated 15 March 2003!). Download it.
2. When you run the above file (an EXE) it opens up a window titled “WinRAR ?????” (no, I’m not joking) with two buttons at the bottom, both labeled “??” (no, still not joking). Click the button on the left (I did this on an old test machine just in case..). It will extract a bunch of files to a folder called “hr6″.
3. Open the “hr6″ folder and run the “setup.exe” file. Select your scanner model (mine is apparently a “HR6 V2″, I discovered this by trial and error), and install the driver.
4. Reboot. Until you reboot running the Scanner Utility tool provided with the driver will tell you that you cannot use the driver with the attached scanner. Hmmm…
5. After you have rebooted, your scanner should work. Except for one thing. This scanner used to work with the Kodak Imaging software that came with Windows 98, which is no longer available in Windows XP. But…
6. …If you have Picasa2 installed (a free download from Google), you can open Picasa2, choose “File”, “Import From…”, and select your scanner from the droplist!! It works perfectly..
7. Repeat loudly 14 times: “We love Google, we love Google!!
