Restoring functionality to optical scanner

Hi,

Have you tried reinstalling the driver of your scanner? HP developed a last driver for Windows Vista which add 32-bit and 64-bit support. It's a basic driver that provides the functionality to make the scanner works - Windows 10 should recognize it.

Here's the driver to download: HP Basic Feature Driver - 2300c series

Before installing this driver, uninstall your printer from Device Manager. Right-click on your printer, select Uninstall and check Delete the driver software for this device.

The steps should be similar for your other scanners.

As you've Windows 10 Pro, check your GPO settings (related to printers). A special setting may have restricted your PC from using printers/scanners.

Also, I couldn't find any info about a value in the registry that can disable the scanner function. However, still in the registry, try deleting your old scanners from there, including the keys referring to the HP scanner as those may be corrupted.

You can found them by going to:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections​​​​​​​
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Printers\Roamed
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3
   

Once you've deleted the old keys, press the Windows + R keys and type services.msc. Make sure Image Acquisition (WIA) and Print Spooler are Enabled and set to Automatic. Then, go to Device Manager to uninstall your scanner and restart your PC once done. After restart, reinstall the driver of your HP scanner.

If the problem persists, open Command Prompt as admin.

Type DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press Enter.

Type sfc /scannow and press Enter.

Restart your PC.

Good luck

GPO means Group Policy Object. It contains all the group policy settings. To access it, press the keys Windows + R on your keyboard and type gpedit.msc.

In Group Policy, select Computer configuration > Administrative Templates > Printers and make sure all the policies are set to their default state; Not configured.

You can also check if you enabled or disabled another settings in Group Policy by selecting All Settings in the left pane, still in Administrative Templates. To show the policies that have been changed by you, click State, then you'll see Enabled or Disabled if their default state has been changed previously. If this is the case, set to Not configured to reset them back to default.

Do the same thing in User configuration > Administrative Templates > All Settings.

You don't need to reset the policies that aren't related to the printer functionality, unless they may have a connection to it, like drivers, external devices, etc.

Hope this helps.

HelpiOS - Since my printer is working fine and I wan it to stay that way, I have searched through the registry ignoring your leads to PRINTERS. I found nothing for scanners of HP \.

I have done all the other suggestions in vain.

In the GPO you only mention printer settings, so I have not bothered with them.

It should have, but had not occurred to me to search the registry for HP or 'scan.

I know there is a response from Ravida Marcos - but it does not show in this thread.

"... difticulties connecting an HPScanjet23OO optical scanner to a new motherboard after updating Windows 10 Pro V22 H2? " That is not REALLY the situation. I updated to v22H2 a long time ago and have used the scanner since. I needed to replace the motherboard, and did so with another of the same code name - presumably equally old. since then the scanner shows as problematical in both Control Panel's Devices and Printers and in Device Manager - also mentioned above.

All your other issues have been mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

I have now done a registry search for HP scanjet and found 13 mentions - the first in Avast

I stopped trying to remove them when the first three resisted deletion.

I guess I can make the drive a slave in another system and try to edit the registry that way...

but that is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty....

Sorry to hear that the previous suggestions didn't help to fix the issue.

Therefore, I invite you to reinstall Windows 10 without losing your data. This will allow to reinstall a clean copy to fix all errors, corrupted and missing system files.

Here are the instructions to reinstall Windows 10. You can download the ISO file of Windows 10 22H2 from this link. The 32-bit version is also available there.

N.B.: I've removed Ravida's answer since it doesn't provide any solution and seems to have been generated with help of AI.

Good luck