If you are having issues seeing scanners follow these steps to determine compatibility.
Check Scanner Installation
The first step is to check that the scanner drivers are properly installed.
- Go to Start > Settings
- Select Devices > Printers & Scanners
- Select the scanner and click Manage
- Click Scanner Properties
You should now see a dialog window similar to the one below:
Figure 1: Scanners and Cameras Dialog Window
Close this window and open Windows Fax and Scan Utility
- Go to Start and type Windows Fax and Scan
- Run the utility
- Choose the New Scan button
- Select the Scanner
- Perform a test scan
If all of the above steps succeed, then the scanner drivers are properly installed on your machine.
Check TWAIN DSM Installation
For some older scanners without WIA support, TWAIN is the only way to communicate with them (this will require a 64-bit twain driver for the scanner which is provided by the hardware manufacturer).
Sometimes, scanners do not install the TWAIN 64 bit support along with the drivers. To confirm that the TWAIN DSM is installed (2.5.1 as of this article posting) a Windows Administrator user will need to take the following actions:
- Start > type Powershell
- Right click and Run as Administrator
- Run the following command:
if ([Environment]::Is64BitOperatingSystem -and [Environment]::Is64BitProcess -and -not (Test-Path "C:\Windows\System32\TWAINDSM.dll")) { Invoke-WebRequest "https://github.com/twain/twain-dsm/releases/download/v2.5.1/dsm_020501.zip" -OutFile "$env:TEMP\dsm_020501.zip"; Expand-Archive "$env:TEMP\dsm_020501.zip" -DestinationPath "$env:TEMP\dsm_020501" -Force; Copy-Item "$env:TEMP\dsm_020501\dsm_020501\windows\64\TWAINDSM.dll" "C:\Windows\System32\TWAINDSM.dll" } else { Write-Host "Skipped: Either not 64-bit Windows, PowerShell is 32-bit, or TWAINDSM.dll already exists." }If the 64 bit twain driver is already installed or you are running 32 bit windows it will let you know.
The twain working group publishes their releases at: https://github.com/twain/twain-dsm/releases