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As we posted earlier, Windows 7 support wasn’t quite there for ScanSnap when the new operating system was released, and the Windows 7 Update for ScanSnap S1500 and S300 was released in December.

Yesterday, Fujitsu sent out a bulletin that the updates for the ScanSnap S510 and S500 have been released.

From the email:

The compatibility update for Windows 7 with ScanSnap S510 & S500 is now available for US based customers.

Please visit the on-line form link below and fill out the form completely.
https://www-s.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/w7_compform.html

After your submission is verified, you will receive an email within one business day with detailed instructions on how to download and install the ScanSnap applications for your Window 7 operating system.

So, for whatever reason, it looks like they are doing things differently this time and you have to fill out form to get sent the instructions.

What About The f-Series?

According to this support bulletin, the S510 update is due “end of January 2010″.

As always, let us know in the comments how your update goes.

Well, Microsoft’s latest version of Windows, Windows 7, gets released today. Similar to what we did with OSX Snow Leopard, I thought I’d make a post so that we can share our experiences using the Fujitsu ScanSnap with it.

I haven’t seen anything official from Fujitsu, but if I had to guess I would say that the ScanSnap S1500 will probably be OK, but the older models such as the S510 and S300 will require a bit more work to get working.   

Since I have neither Windows 7 nor a Windows ScanSnap, I am relying on Google and you guys here.

This post from SevenForums seems to have a workaround to get the older ScanSnaps working.

Hopefully the Windows 7 release goes a bit more smoothly than the Snow Leopard one did. If you have any experience getting your ScanSnap working with Windows 7, leave a comment and let us know. I’ll post any relevant updates here.

Update: Fujitsu has posted a support bulletin outlining what will be supported when. Basically:

• S1500: End of November 2009
• S300: End of November 2009
• S510: End of December 2009
• S500: End of December 2009 (but it will not support 64-bit OS)

If you want to be notified with updates, you can sign up here.

In the past I have posted about how to use Japanese ScanSnap drivers, and have posted that the new Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 and S1500M will be cross-platform, but what if you don’t want to mess around with foreign drivers or have an older ScanSnap scanner?

if you have access to a Windows XP CD, there is a free way that you can use your ScanSnap S510 or S300 on your Mac using VirtualBox. (This may even work with Linux too – I’ve never tried).

VirtualBox is a free open source program that will let you run Windows on your Mac. There’s no rebooting required like Boot Camp – you run Windows inside a window in your Mac. This is great not only for the ScanSnap but for any Windows program you may be stuck using.

There are two requirements to do this:

1. You need to have an Intel mac. No Powerbooks or Powermacs, sorry.
2. You need to have access to a Windows XP installation CD

Ready? Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and download VirtualBox for OSX hosts

2. Double-click on the downloaded VirtualBox .DMG file and open it up. Then double-click on the VirtualBox.mpkg installer

Follow through all the prompts and click Close when done.

3. In the Applications folder, double click on the VirtualBox application

4. Once VirtualBox starts up, click the New icon

5. Go through the steps of the Wizard. At first, give your new virtual machine a name (you can think of a virtual machine as your new Windows-inside-your-Mac). Give it as much memory as you want but don’t go below the recommendation. For this I stuck with the base 192 Megs but you may want to bump it up if you can.

6. If you are doing this for the first time, chose New for Hard Drive and when you go through the wizard you probably want to choose Dynamic Storage

7. You can leave the name of your new virtual disk as-is and give it whatever you think you need for hard drive space.

8. Hit Finish to end the new virtual disk creation wizard, then Next to choose your new disk, then Finish

9. You’ll now see that the Settings and Start menus are activated. Before we start, we want to enable USB. Click the Settings Icon and then the Ports menu. Click Enable USB Controller.

10. Click OK and then the Green Start arrow

11. You’re going to get a message about it auto-capturing your keyboard. All that is saying is that if you are “in Windows” and you do something like Alt-Tab, it will be doing the Alt-Tab in Windows and not in your Mac. If you don’t want that, just hold down the left Command key. Hit OK.

12. Now it’s time for the First Run Wizard. Pop in your Windows XP CD, choose where it is, and hit Next and Finish if it’s right.

13. Now we get the beautiful blue Windows install screens we know and love. Hit Enter to choose your new Unpartitioned Space and choose to format NTFS. Then let it run.

14. Create a Shared Folder so that your Mac can see documents that your Windows VM has scanned. Click the Shared Folders icon and then Add A Shared Folder.

15. Choose or create a folder and then click Make Permanent and hit OK

16. Before your new shared folder will work, in the top VirtualBox VM menu, choose Devices and then Install Guest Additions. Choose VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe and follow the prompts

17. Map that new folder to a drive letter, say in this example the Z drive. In Windows Explorer. go to My Network Places, Then Entire Network, then VirtualBox Shared Folders and you should see \\VBOXSVR\Scanned (or whatever you called your new folder). Right click on that and choose Map Network Drive and give it a drive letter.

18. Now it’s time to follow Fujitsu’s instructions for installing your Windows ScanSnap. Don’t plug in your ScanSnap yet but install the software on your Setup CD.

19. Plug in your ScanSnap and turn it on. You will likely find.. nothing happens. Your light on your ScanSnap may blink. You need to tell VirtualBox that you want to enable it first. Click on the Ports icon on the bottom of your VM and choose your scanner from the list of devices.

20. Scan away! Either scan to a folder or using ScanSnap Organizer. Either way, if you want your PDFs to be accessible by the Mac you will probably want to scan them to your drive that you created in step 17.

There we go. It’s really not as complex as this 20 step tutorial may make it sound, but if you give it a try let me know how it goes.

The whole scanner-replacing-fax idea is certainly nothing new, but I enjoyed this article in Esquire by Barry Sonnenfeld, who is a TV producer and the director of Men In Black.

Instead of relying on faxes, he can now “efficiently harass writers from anywhere, at any time”:

My method of working is to scribble thoughts on the pages of all these various scripts and then send them back to the writers. The note they dread the most is a circled joke or a scratch through lines of dialogue with a huge “DB,” which means “do better.” I used to send these notes via fax, but thanks to the latest in digital technology, I no longer need a fax machine to do so (and just as important, the writers don’t have to be at a fax machine to receive them).

Sonnenfeld goes on to do a mini-review of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510, its smaller cousin the S300, and the Xerox Travel Scanner 100.

His conclusion? For the travelling scanning mogul, the S300 is the way to go.

Often when there is a review or article about the Fujitsu ScanSnap, there are commenters saying that they already have a multifunction all-in-one or flatbed scanner, so why would they need to pay for something that just scans?

I’ve decided to outline some of the pros and cons of each.

Multifunction All-In-One/Flatbed

• Often cheaper – You can usually find a multifunction or flatbed scanner for much less money than a ScanSnap
• Can scan books/3D Objects – Since it’s flatbed, if you can put it on the scanner you can scan it. The ScanSnap can only scan flat things
• TWAIN compatible – Most of these scanners are TWAIN compatible, which the ScanSnap is not. This means you can initiate the scan from other applications
• Manual unless you have a document feeder type – Many flatbed scanners do not have a document feeder, or even if they do you have to manually flip the paper over to scan both sides.
• Flat – Because the ScanSnap’s paper path is not 100% straight, if you are scanning photos etc. it may be better to do it on a flatbed

Fujitsu ScanSnap

• Scans both pages at same time – Don’t underestimate the usefulness of this. When you have a lot of paper to go through, having to do just one pass and bring in both sides at once can be a huge time-saver
• Discards blank pages – When you are doing double-sided scanning, having it discard blank pages automatically is both a time and a space saver
• Handles different size paper – With some flatbed/multifunctions, in the rare case where they have a document feeder, you have to have all the paper the same size when you feed in a stack. The ScanSnap will handle a stack of different sized pages no problem.
• Smaller footprint – Depending on whether you get the desktop model like the S1500 or a portable one S300, it is 1/3 or more smaller than a flatbed
• Portable versions can power from USB – If you have the S300 or S300M, you can run it off the USB instead of plugging it into the wall. This can be handy if you need to be portable or want to scan somewhere where a plug isn’t handy
• Incredibly easy to use with 1 button – Again, don’t underestimate the usefulness here. If something is not simple you (or at least I) won’t do it on a regular basis. Throwing the paper in and hitting a button is as simple as it gets.

So which is better, a ScanSnap or an all-in-one?

Like most things, it depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to scan lots of books or photos, a flatbed is probably a better choice. Something like the Canon MX850 is probably good, because it at least has a document feeder for those times you do want to scan some paper.

However, if you are wanting to scan documents on a regular basis, my personal opinion is that a Fujitsu ScanSnap is the way to go. The speed, ease of use, and included software will make a big difference.

Have I forgotten any pros and cons for either? Leave a comment and let us know.

Photo by Legozilla

While the Fujitsu ScanSnap might be super-easy to use with only one button, there is a lot going under the hood to make it work that way. When you have problems like paper jams or more than one page getting pulled through, it might be time to replace (or at least clean) your consumables.

What On Earth is a Consumable?

A lot of people don’t know this, but there are a few parts in your ScanSnap that should be replaced every once in a while to make sure that it keeps running in top shape. Consumable is just a fancy word for those parts.

How Do I Know When Its Time To Replace?

The most obvious answer is when you start having problems. If you start getting multiple paper feed problems or paper jams, that’s an alarm.

However, the ScanSnap Manager does tell you when it is getting time to replace two parts in particular: the Pick Roller and the Pad Assembly.

Checking Your Consumables

The screenshots you see here are for the Mac, but it is the same concept with Windows. Just right click on the System Tray instead of the Dock.

First, right-click on ScanSnap Manager (with the ScanSnap open so that it is powered on) and choose Check Consumable Supplies.

Once there, you will be shown some useful information.

This screenshot is from the ScanSnap S300M, so your values may be different. On the left you see the “Target Value to change supplies”. For the S300M, Fujitsu recommends that you change the Pick roller every 100,000 sheets and the Pad Assembly every 10,000 sheets.

On the right, the first box is the total number of pages that this ScanSnap has scanned. The bottom two boxes are the number of scans that have been done since the Pick Roller and the Pad Assembly have been replaced. You can see that I have not yet needed to replace them.

The reset buttons are so that when you do replace a part, you can hit “Reset” to set it back to zero for that new part.

Which Part Do I Need?

The easiest way to find your part is to Google the part number. The prices vary wildly but are not too expensive. Click on the part number to do a Google search to find places in your area that do mail order. You can also ask the place where you bought the ScanSnap too, but I am guessing online is cheaper.

Pick and Pad What?

A Pick Roller is what does the pulling into the document feeder. It works with the Pad Assembly to pull the paper in. The Pad Assembly is like the brake pad in your car. It is what separates the pages.
If either the Pick Roller or Pad Assembly are worn down or excessively dirty, you are going to get multiple pages pulled through the ScanSnap.

Cleaning and Replacing The Pick Roller And Pad Assembly

The best way to clean and/or replace the parts is to follow the instructions in the Operator’s Guide. If you can’t find yours, here are links them on Fujitsu’s website. You’ll want to look at Chapter 8 and 9.

• ScanSnap S300 Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap S300M Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap S510M Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap S510M Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap general documentation page

How many pages does your ScanSnap’s Total Page Count show?