After following your instructions on reinstalling my scanner software in your column on the 29th January 2000 I am still unable to use the scanner (the boot up error messages have gone though). When attempting to use the Scanner, I get an error message stating that the scanner is in use by another application. I don’t think it is but it is hard to tell by the cryptic names listed by the Task Manager. In attempting to fix this problem I tried another tact and went and tried the ‘Add Hardware’ wizard. When I selected the HP 5100C, a message appeared saying that the device is already installed but ‘the drivers for this device are not installed (code 28)’. On attempting to reinstall the drivers using the Windows 98 SE CD and the HP Scanner CD no drivers could be found. Any further ideas?

The only scanner related applications which should be running in the background of Windows are STIMON and HPSJVXD. Try closing, through the Task Manager, any other non-essential applications running in the background of Windows except STIMON and HPSJVXD and then try to run a scan. If it works, then the task is just a matter of finding the culprit application which is using the scanner. If it doesn’t work, then the problem is more than likely related to the fact that ‘the drivers for this device are not installed’. What I suggest that you now do, is take a trip to the HP Scanjet 5100c support website. You can find the support page at www.hp.com/cposupport/prodhome/c5197a.html. As I was looking through the pages at the support website I found an article titled ‘Solving Scanner Errors: Scanner is in use by unknown application…’. I strongly suggest that you read this article and try out the suggestions contained therein. You can find this article by going to the support website (given above) and under the ‘technical support’ heading on the right of the page, click the ‘frequently asked questions’ link. The ‘most frequently asked questions’ page will now load. On this page, click the link ‘Solving Scanner Errors ‘Scanner in use by unknown application’ and ‘Sorry, could not access your scanner’ or Software Freezes’. This will take you to the page with the instructions which will hopefully solve your problem.