Pelikal,

I assume you've tried installing/running the Microtek software in comparability mode ?

Whilst in certain scenarios stubbornness and persistence can be admirable... one does wonder why you're bothering fighting when you can pick up a brand new, current model scanner with comparable specs to your vintage Microtek for £40 !

Your Microtek 4900 was 2400dpi .... that's cheap entry-level these days.... if we go bottom fishing for the cheapest stuff on the market, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 120, HP ScanJet 200 and HP ScanJet 300 are all less than £50 and will all probably be equivalent or better than your old Microtek in terms of specs.

Nudge up to sub-£60 and you've got the Epson Perfection V37 which is double the resolution of your Microtek !

mixture, glad you called. Spent the afternoon p!ssing in the wind, to be honest. I can't run in compatibility mode (W7 Home Premium). No drivers for the (ancient) 4900 etc etc.

Being very short of funds, I just thought I would have one last crack at this set-up. now I think I'm being just bloody stupid.

Fed up with pissing about with this XP Toshiba anyway. Only used it to run the scanner. I really would like to be back on a Mac based set-up but I can't see that happening anytime soon.

I'll take note of your recommendations, thanks for your time and effort.:ok:

I don't swear much, but using the word 'Vista' is permissible in extremis.
I've been helped out a couple of times by trying a Vista driver for a W7 app.
Worth a try?

jimtherev, thanks but without the specific WIA drivers I can't see this working.:confused: I think I'll call this query closed.

Cheers to all.

[Alt]xxx not workign for login
 

This surprised greatly me since it is a BIOS function built into the very lowest level of the machine, how could it not work? -

So I just tried it and it does work here - at least from the lock screen.

Hard to remember to do it right on a laptop with the weird numeric overlay (I kept pressing [Fn]xxx) but when I finally operated it correctly it worked. I have never bothered with the leading zeros [ALT]65 gets upper case "A".

Oh, and it is DECIMAL, not hex. R is [Alt]82.

The other approach would be to use one of the magic password deleting/changing/(possibly now recovering) boot CDs. I have done this a number of times and it works brilliantly. I have used cd080802 for years. I guess this won't work for the new "secure boot" versions of Windows.

Hmmm must take great care with passwords.

There are some listed here.
How to Figure Out Why Your PC is Beeping (Beep Codes)

jimjim1,
Thanks for info. As I said, I'm sorted now but interesting to know that it should've worked. Cheers:ok:.