Epson Scanners on Windows XP and Windows 2000
This article applies to:
Symptoms
A Limited user (i.e. a user with restricted access rights) is
not able to scan with an Epson scanner.
Cause
The Epson TWAIN 5 driver attempts to write to the
\Windows\TWAIN_32\EPFB5 directory. Limited users do not normally have
write access to that directory.
Solution
There are three possible solutions to this problem.
The first solution is to always log in as a user with administrative
privileges. This is often impractical in corporate, educational, or
institutional environments.
The second solution is to use a different driver. Epson scanners
support the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) interface on Windows ME,
Windows 2000, and Windows XP. This provides two additional drivers to
choose from. An Epson scanner would therefore have three drivers in all:
Epson TWAIN 5, a driver with a name that starts with WIA- followed by
the name of the scanner (this is actually a TWAIN driver that passes
all commands onto the WIA driver), and a driver with the same name as
the scanner (this is the true WIA driver). Although Epson TWAIN 5 does
not work for Limited users, the other two will. The only drawback is
that document feeders work poorly or not at all with these two latter
drivers. If you do not have a document feeder, using one of these
drivers is the best solution.
The third solution is to give Limited users write access to the one
directory that Epson TWAIN 5 needs, i.e. \Windows\TWAIN_32\EPFB5. This
is a potential security risk, but not nearly as bad as solution #1. To
change the protection, follow these steps:
-
Log in to an account with Administrator privileges.
-
Ensure that Simple File Sharing is off. From Windows Explorer,
choose the Tools | Folder Options... menu. Select the View tab. Scroll
to the end of the list and un-check "Use simple file sharing
(Recommended)". Click the OK button.
-
In Windows Explorer, find \Windows\TWAIN_32\EPFB5. Right click
on it to bring up the properties menu and select Sharing and
Security... In the displayed dialog, select the Security tab. Highlight
the entry for Users in the Group or user names list. In the Permissions
for Users list, check the Allow box next to "Full Control". Click
the OK button.
-
If you wish, you can turn on Simple File Sharing again.
All Limited users should now be able to use the Epson TWAIN 5
driver. For a little extra security, you could enable full control of
the directory for a specific user only, if there is only one Limited
user on the computer who uses the scanner. Consult Microsoft's
documentation for information on how to do this.
History
Creation Date: April 30, 2003
Last Modified: April 30, 2003
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