Access Scanner Thru LAN
 

ok, here's the deal.

i have this real old scanner, and it doent wanna work on my new machine (it scans 1/4th teh way, then stops). it's weird and they dont make drivers for xp for this particular scanner.

so, i hook it up to my old machine (also win xp) and it works on there.

the scanner is now connected directly to the old machine and the printer is connected to the new one thru usb.


i was wonderin if there was a way i could access the scanner from my new machine.

file sharin is enabled and i can print across the network, but is it possible to scan accross the network?

not possible to do from what I've learn, unless you remote desktop

<i>Dude</i>, I have read the "share your scanner with XP" crap when it came out (XP). I have a functional lan at home, and a scanner is on the desktop. I cannot share the scanner no matter what I do, even though Microsoft says it is possible.
I can share the scanned photos from any 'puter at home, but, I cannot actually use the scanner from any computer other than the one it is connected to.
I don't know if that helps, it is just what I have experienced <i>dude</i>.

what about other hardware?? like a webcam??

It's possible, though I don't know exactly how you would do it. I have an HP scanner at work that can go through the network, but it was a feature of the software that came with the scanner.

Do you want to scan to a directory on another machine? If so just have the scanning software write to a mapped drive instead of a local one. Either way you still have to physically be at the scanner to scan so you are only saving the step of copying the file off of the local machine.

I'm sure in practice that direct hardware access isn't probable across a lan, but sounds like you could just scan on the old machine and transfer to the new.
Or get another scanner, they come in cereal boxes now.

the only people i know that have been able to do it all had those hp's like scorpion mentioned that were designed for it

I don't think that you can do anything like this.

Just stick with what Konichiwaneko said - Remote Desktop Connection or use www.realvnc.com

or sneakernet :)

As others said, you won't be able to do it. Some really high-end printers do have network scanning that actually works as expected, mostly.

Some of the medium-end ones, like the $500 HP OfficeJet printers, have support for what is called HP JetDirect (and other devices) which basically puts the printer on the network, gives it an IP address, and lets other computers access its built-in web server. On the web server, you can adjust things, see status, and initiate a scan through the webpage. It'll give you a preview, let you set options, and scan into a PDF, JPEG, PNG, and I think a couple other formats.

But no, your scanner won't work across the LAN, unfortunately.