How do I install the Fujitsu fi-4120C scanner on Windows 7 64-bit?

Question

The Fujitsu fi-4120C scanner is not officially supported in Windows 7, but in the past I know I've somehow got it installed using the Vista driver.

Unfortunately I can't remember what steps I took and none of the solutions I've googled work.

Answer 1

I spent several hours figuring it out, but Vuescan will work with Windows 8 x64 and the Fujitsu fi-4120c (and I would bet a dollar Windows 7 x64 as well using this same method). Vuescan is free. Here's how:

1. First uninstall any drivers you've attempted to install. Restart.
2. Install vuescan.
3. Then install this driver manually, by going to device manager and clicking "update driver", "choose manually", "have disk", and install the driver I uploaded at this link:

That should do it. If for some reason Microsoft won't allow that link, you should be able to do something like the additional steps below to make it work. It took me like 6 hours, but it DOES work with vuescan and x64 Win8.

If you can't get the driver I uploaded above, try:

4. Plugging in the scanner.

5. Attempting to automatically install.

6. Try restarting and leave scanner plugged in if the driver isn't loading.

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EDIT ON 1/20/14: I worked directly with VueScan on this issue, and Version 9.4.21 contains the fix for the Fujitsu fi-4120C. Just download directly from their site and it will work without any hacks necessary. They were very responsive about fixing the issue, so hat's off to Hamrick Software.

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Answer 2

Windows Vista 32-bit could install most 32-bit Windows XP drivers, so that might be what you did. Unfortunately, a 64-bit OS cannot (by any means) load a 32-bit driver, and even 32-bit Windows 7 has largely broken all compatibility with old 32-bit XP drivers. If the manufacturer doesn't support Windows Vista / 7, then they definitely don't support a 64-bit version of the driver, so... you're stuck.

If this is critical and you are unable to change to different hardware, you may have to install 32-bit Windows Vista -- that would be the most likely OS to support it aside from Windows XP itself.

One last idea: since it's USB, you could try installing a Linux virtual machine using VMware Workstation or VirtualBox, and give the USB scanner over to the guest, which lets the guest OS fully access the device and use its own driver, even if the host OS doesn't have a driver. Linux keeps its drivers around "forever" and compatibility is very far-reaching; so, if it has ever worked on Linux, it should still work.

I've done all the homework for you, so here's the answer: using the sane-fujitsu package (which should just auto-configure or provide very easy setup on recent Linux distros), you should have full support for this scanner on Linux!

Reference -- see where it says "complete" for the fi-4120C?

You may have to install the fujitsu drivers from the package manager of the distro you choose, but once you do that, support for SANE within programs is generally very good. This means that any program that can speak the "SANE" interface (pretty much anything) will support scanning. You can use, e.g. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) for scanning, or gscan2pdf for multiple pages at a time directly to a PDF.

So, a possible solution is something like:

1. Download Ubuntu 12.04 from ubuntu.com
2. Download the latest version of VirtualBox for Windows from virtualbox.org
3. Install Ubuntu into a VirtualBox guest (this is covered by the VirtualBox manual, so don't ask this question on SuperUser; it's yawn easy)
4. Attach the scanner to your computer over USB; SCSI may not work
5. Attach the scanner to your running Ubuntu guest (this is covered by the VirtualBox manual, so don't ask this question on SuperUser; it's yawn easy)
6. Check around in Ubuntu under printers/scanners to see if it's recognized, or if not, add a new printer and see if it auto detects it; if not, see here for troubleshooting and tips.

These steps are free and just require a few minutes of your time (or hours if you are new to virtualization and Linux, or if your internet connection is slow), and they don't require you to start Linux on bare metal, which could be scarier. If you get confused and want out, you can just close the VM.

You could then do something like this when you want to scan:

1. Boot up the guest
2. Start gscan2pdf
3. Scan....
4. Copy the scanned PDF file to your host operating system using VirtualBox's Shared Folders feature
5. Go on your way.

Answer 3

A friend of mine had a similar problem before. The most user friendly option is to use Windows XP mode if you have the variant of Windows 7 that has it. You can then connect the scanner to the Windows XP virtual machine and do the work from there.