In case you were wondering, the scanner is fine, but HP's software sure is lousy

I recently bought on eBay a Hewlett-Packard Scanjet 6200c scanner. A consignment shop was selling it, but I knew who the owner was and trusted that the equipment would probably be in good shape. It was, when it finally arrived. I can't say much in favor of the consignment shop; they took five days to get the product out the door after I'd paid for it, and they didn't respond to e-mail inquiries. I also think they could have marketed the product better, though any weakness there worked out to my advantage.

The only problem is that Hewlett-Packard's driver and scanning software for the 6200c is horrid. So I'm going to hold it up as an example of bad design from installation through (a brief cycle of) operation to failure, focusing on human-computer interface and error reporting. I will also criticize HP's support website for the product. I only have limited experience in which it has actually worked, so that will be a very short discussion. I'll be focusing mostly on — you guessed it — failure conditions. (I'll note that the hardware itself appears, from what little I have been able to accomplish with it, to be quite decent.)

Installation

I downloaded the driver package from Hewlett-Packard's support website. It's a self-extracting ZIP file with the very descriptive filename "sj673en.exe." I double-clicked on the file. I got an error message.

Problem: The self-extracting ZIP file automatically tries to extract to C:\sj673en. I don't have a C: drive. (My system drive is M: and my data drive is D:. Don't ask why, because I don't remember.) Even if I did, what gives HP the right to decide where on my system the file should be extracted, especially when it doesn't delete the extracted files afterwards? (And I wouldn't want it to delete them if I had control over the extraction.) What HP should do: If you're going to distribute in the self-extracting ZIP format, don't bypass the dialog that lets the user decide where to extract the files. What I did: Temporarily mapped a shared folder to drive C:.

The self-extractor automatically ran the installation program for the drivers and "HP PrecisonScan Pro" software (a program that exhibits few if any "professional" attributes). This was a poorly-configured Wise installer. By default, the software installs to the SCANJET folder on the main system drive. Bad call. Since Win95 — that's more than 10 years ago, people — Microsoft has prescribed a standard filesystem layout in which applications should be installed in the "Program Files" tree. Why does HP think it's special and its program files should be installed on the system root? What I did, but shouldn't have had to do: Browsed to an alternate installation location in my Program Files folder.

Finally, the software installed.

Next, I connected the USB cable from the scanner to the computer and plugged in the scanner, which has no "on/off" switch of its own. Windows detected the new USB device, located the driver, and started to install it. After a few moments, I saw an error message: The driver installer needed the program hpsjrreg.exe. This program was not included anywhere in the downloaded ZIP from HP. I found it on a third-party repository of printer drivers. It made me a little uncomfortable having to get an EXE file from a third party.

The installer completed. I started the "HP PrecisionScan Pro" software and tested the scanner, and it worked.

Operation and Failure

It worked for about 5 minutes. After five minutes, I had a paper jam in the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). Following instructions in the ADF manual, I extricated the paper and prepared to try scanning a different document in the ADF.

Problem: The "HP PrecisionScan Pro" software could no longer communicate with the scanner. I got the following error message: "Sorry, scanner could not be initialized. (Scanner not found.)"

Troubleshooting and a slog through a badly designed and poorly written technical support information database

I checked the USB connection by looking in the Device Manager. It was good. As far as Windows XP was concerned, the scanner was there.

I unplugged the scanner, let it rest for a few minutes to discharge capacitors, and plugged it back in. This did not alleviate the problem.

I checked the documentation for the scanner and ADF. There's no "troubleshooting" section.

I went searching on HP's support website. Here I found a difficult-to-navigate website for this particular model of scanner. The search function proved useless, so I browsed around and found a page offering help with error messages.

As you may have guessed from the error message I quoted earlier, the "HP PrecisionScan Pro" software does a lousy job explaining what's going on when it presents an error message. I've seen a few variants on the "could not initialize scanner" error message, and none of them have given me a clue about where things have gone wrong. Moreover, one can't tell the difference between them. They're the kind of error message that could only help the programmer, and those kinds of error messages infuriate end-users.

The website offered no fewer than six pages related to initialization:

1. "General Troubleshooting for Initialization Errors and/or the HP Scanjet Scanner Stops Working When Using SCSI or Parallel." Well, I'm using USB, so this one doesn't apply.
2. "'Cannot Initialize Scanner' Message Appears after the First Page Feeds Through the Automatic Document Feeder." You can't tell from the description, but this one also applies only to SCSI connections.
3. "An Error Message of 'Scanner Not Found' or 'Sorry Scanner Could Not be Initialized'." That looked promising, too, but this one only applies when you're trying to use a network connection to access a scanner that's attached to another computer.
4. "'Sorry, Scanner Not Found; Scanner Not Initialized'." Hey! This one looks almost exactly like the last article title, but it has different advice. This article suggests manually adding some keys to the Windows registry. I tried it. Nothing happened. Rebooting didn't help.
5. "Resolving 'Scanner Could Not Be Initialized, Scanner Read Error' Message." Amazing how all these documents with similar titles can have different advice. Like the first few, this article only applies when the scanner connects to the computer using SCSI.
6. "Resolving USB Scanner Initialization and Related Communication Error Messages." Aha! I connected the scanner using USB! Maybe this is a real solution!

I looked at the last article. What I found there was an absolutely atrocious un-install everything and start over procedure that required the user to edit the registry manually.

This kind of recommendation is not a real solution. It's giving up and starting over. It shows that somewhere in the software there is a bug so severe that giving up and starting over is the best hope. It's an admission: "Our program sucks." In the course of the years since the program was released (in 2002), no one has figured out what's wrong and tried to fix it. Instead, HP asks the user to take twenty to forty minutes, engage in risky computer management activities, and start over from scratch.

This should shock anyone selling or buying hardware and software. You ought to be appalled, and HP ought to be ashamed. It should never, ever get that bad. Especially not because of a paper jam.

In which I try to take HP's advice

I picked my jaw up off the floor and thought I'd give HP's advice a try.

1. Uninstall the software. The uninstaller didn't work. After I clicked on "OK" in the "are you really sure you want to remove this software" dialog box, the box disappeared and nothing further happened. I manually deleted the files from my Program Files folder.
2. Delete other files the uninstaller wouldn't have deleted anyway. Done.
3. Uninstall the scanner drivers in the Device Manager. Done.
4. Edit the registry. Done very carefully.
5. Reboot and repeat the installation process. Done.

After all of that, lo and behold, the scanner worked!

Operation and Failure (again)

The "HP PrecisionScan Pro" software works with the ADF, but it doesn't save Class F multipage TIFFs. It saves each page as a separate image. Useless. Its dialog boxes are obscure and its settings obscurer.

This morning, I was using the computer when the power failed. I wasn't operating the scanner, but when later I tried to scan a letter I'd received from a friend, I got an error message:

"Sorry, scanner could not be initialized. (Scanner not found.)"

Unbelievable. Truly unbelievable.

Since then, I've tried the uninstall-reinstall process again and it didn't work. I may try it once more later today.

Things to Appreciate and Lessons Learnt

What do I take away from all this?

I'm glad the previous owner took good care of her equipment. If she ever got this error, though, it'd be a wonder if she ever got to use the scanner. I hope the software behaved better for her.

I will think twice before buying again from the consignment shop the seller used. There's no excuse for a five-day shipping lead time or for failing to respond to polite e-mail inquiries.

I probably will never again buy a Hewlett-Packard product.

I will take solace in the fact that the Macintosh software for the scanner is produced by someone other than HP. Their website could be better organized, but when I get a PowerBook I'll give that software a test drive. It'd be hard for it to be any worse.

In the meantime, I've read that the open-source SANE Project (Scanner Access Now Easy) supports the Scanjet 6200 on USB. I'll boot into Linux, load it up and try out some SANE-enabled applications to see if it works over there. It would be a pain to have to use Linux for all of my scanning, but if it works that'll probably be the lowest stress solution until I get the Mac.

I still think I got a really good deal on a scanner. I just have to get it working, and I'm glad I still have a few options through which I can try to achieve that end. But I'm truly appalled at HP's bad software and disorganized web-based support.