Epson Perfection 1260 TWAIN drivers not recognised (XP Home)
 

My Epson Perfection 1260 (which I have been using for around eight
years) has suddenly stopped working. I'm using XP Home. However, it's
still OK on a laptop using XP Professional.

I've been digging through the various forum and newsgroup archives, and
it appears that this sort of problem has been popping up for several
years (even with other printers and other versions of Windows).

The obvious problem is the none of the TWAIN drivers are being
recognised. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the original software, and
also used the latest TWAIN drivers, run a registry repair, re-done the
un- and re- installations etc, but I always get a report saying that
there is no TWAIN driver. Yes, the computer knows the scanner is there,
and it says it's working - but unless it can recognise the TWAIN driver,
it isn't going to work.

Fortunately, the scanner WILL work (although with far fewer options)
with two of my little-used imaging programs - Photoshop 7 and Microsoft
Paint (instead of my usual FastStone Image Viewer). These offer the
option of selecting a WIA driver, and that allows the scanner to work,
albeit with reduced functionality and fewer scanning options). [I
haven't checked yet if I can still use the scanner's
transparency/negative adaptor.]
http://www.scanhelp.com/ScanEdu/wiascanners.html#List
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Image_Acquisition

It would seem from the various newsgroup and forum archives that this
sudden failure of certain scanners to work may be linked to one of the
Windows updates. There are countless helpful suggestions but,
unfortunately, I've only found one person who positively said "I did
this, and it fixed it". As the fix seemed to involve a lot of messing
about with deleting Windows updates, doing a Windows repair etc, I'm
extremely reluctant to try and mend something which isn't totally
broken.

I'm in two minds as whether to accept the fact that I still can use the
scanner (although not as I used to) and get on with my life, or to
pursue a fix, and possibly screw up my PC in the process. So, has anyone
found a relatively simple fix for this problem, or should I just live
with things as they are?
--
Ian