I have a Canon Power Shot A40, a fairly old model.  Our recollection is that an
old WinXP laptop, possibly lacking in the appropriate updates, is able to
download images from it in a plug-and-play fashion.  It's at home.  While on
vacation,  I tried without success to download the images from both a Windows
Vista box (NOT mine!) and a well-updated WinXP laptop. Windows insisted on
finding a driver.  We went searching for Windows software and or drivers for
the A40, but it either appeared to be scamware not from Canon or crap from
Canon that wasn't in fact a driver.

I booted  a Kubuntu 8.04.1 live CD on the WinXP laptop. Kubuntu mounted the
camera automatically. Digikam autodetected the camera type and downloaded the
images-- in this case I chose USB drive.

Q: Should I have had to go to Linux?  Either in terms of my skill about knowing
what Windows should do, or in what Windows "used to" be able to do?

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"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> I have a Canon Power Shot A40, a fairly old model.  Our recollection is that an
> old WinXP laptop, possibly lacking in the appropriate updates, is able to
> download images from it in a plug-and-play fashion.  It's at home.  While on
> vacation,  I tried without success to download the images from both a Windows
> Vista box (NOT mine!) and a well-updated WinXP laptop. Windows insisted on
> finding a driver.  We went searching for Windows software and or drivers for
> the A40, but it either appeared to be scamware not from Canon or crap from
> Canon that wasn't in fact a driver.
>
> I booted  a Kubuntu 8.04.1 live CD on the WinXP laptop. Kubuntu mounted the
> camera automatically. Digikam autodetected the camera type and downloaded the
> images-- in this case I chose USB drive.
>
> Q: Should I have had to go to Linux?  Either in terms of my skill about knowing
> what Windows should do, or in what Windows "used to" be able to do?

I've always had trouble with Canon software/drivers working on my XP/Vista
boxes. I gave up and bought a generic USB card reader. I pop the memory stick
out of the camera into the reader and cut and paste all image files into a
folder on the PC just using Windows Explorer. It frees the memory on the stick
for more photos at the same time.

I just keep the reader in my laptop case when traveling and getting lots of good
reference photos.

:)

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"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.49dde9d611aab0072e64ba0@news.povray.org...

> Q: Should I have had to go to Linux?  Either in terms of my skill about
knowing
> what Windows should do, or in what Windows "used to" be able to do?

Consumer camera drivers and utilities are, without exception, pure crap
written by otherwise unemployable code monkeys. Use a card reader / adapter.

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> I've always had trouble with Canon software/drivers working on my XP/Vista
> boxes. I gave up and bought a generic USB card reader. I pop the memory 
> stick
> out of the camera into the reader and cut and paste all image files into a
> folder on the PC just using Windows Explorer. It frees the memory on the 
> stick
> for more photos at the same time.

Just to balance the responses here, I have not had any problems connecting 
my G7, 300D or 450D to both XP and Vista boxes, for transferring 
photos/videos, remote capture and remote live view.  Saying that I still use 
a USB card reader most of the time though, don't know why, probably because 
I don't want any silly Canon software trying to automate the downloading of 
my images.

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somebody wrote:
> Consumer camera drivers and utilities are, without exception, pure crap
> written by otherwise unemployable code monkeys. Use a card reader / adapter.

Unless it shows up as just a mountable drive, at which point you're using 
MS's drivers anyway. :-)

The new canoscan software is the first bundled software I've used that 
actually provides useful features. Multicropping and automatic 
Scan->OCR->searchablePDF.  Niiiice.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:49de2581$1@news.povray.org...
> The new canoscan software is the first bundled software I've used that
> actually provides useful features. Multicropping and automatic
> Scan->OCR->searchablePDF.  Niiiice.

I concur .... have a canon scanner. Software is very functional!

Jim

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Obviously, I use Linux and my Canon camera just works with it, though I 
do tend to use the card reader more often than not.

Jim

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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > I've always had trouble with Canon software/drivers working on my XP/Vista
> > boxes. I gave up and bought a generic USB card reader. I pop the memory
> > stick
> > out of the camera into the reader and cut and paste all image files into a
> > folder on the PC just using Windows Explorer. It frees the memory on the
> > stick
> > for more photos at the same time.
>
> Just to balance the responses here, I have not had any problems connecting
> my G7, 300D or 450D to both XP and Vista boxes, for transferring
> photos/videos, remote capture and remote live view.  Saying that I still use
> a USB card reader most of the time though, don't know why, probably because
> I don't want any silly Canon software trying to automate the downloading of
> my images.


To some degree, these data are like that Dilbert cartoon where an iron girder
has fallen on one employee's head, and Catbert responds, "No one else is
complaining."

I became an exclusive customer of  Canon because its cameras were working
automatically with Windows' Camera and Scanner Wizard.  I guess I'm sort of
religiously opposed to installing new apps for a USB device, but in this case I
couldn't even get new working software for the A40 off the web.

My hypothesis is that a combination of very old camera and newly updated Win OS
doesn't work. I have a camera that worked flawlessly on a laptop when Kubuntu
was the OS, but failed with WinXP. The camera also failed on a Vista box.

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gregjohn wrote:
> My hypothesis is that a combination of very old camera and newly updated Win OS
> doesn't work.

Did you check that Windows Image Aquisition service is running? That's part 
of it.  I.e., you can turn off the ability for MS to automatically detect 
the camera.  There's stuff in the camera/scanner control panel thingie that 
might have gotten changed, too.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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"Robert McGregor" <rob### [at] mcgregorfineartcom> wrote:
> ...I gave up and bought a generic USB card reader. I pop the memory stick
> out of the camera into the reader and cut and paste all image files into a
> folder on the PC just using Windows Explorer. It frees the memory on the stick
> for more photos at the same time.

Same for me. I have an old (OLD!) Olympus digi camera--actually the third one of
the same model, after losing or breaking the first two(!)--and, although its
software does work on my (equally older) Mac, it's just far easier to insert
the (old and outdated!) memory card into my Windows XP box's multi-card-reader
to download the photos. I haven't actually used the Olympus software in years.

Yeah, *someday* I'll get a NEW camera (but my old clunker is *really* cheap on
e-bay, if I have to replace it yet again...)

KW

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