I recently decided to purchase a scanner that offered a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connection by default and SCSI as a secondary option. Since the higher speed SCSI cards have a steep price, I decided to investigate the option of using USB.

The target machine for the scanner was configured as follows:

• 200Mhz Pentium (pre-MMX) – 1997 Phoenix Bios (the newer Bios' have a USB enable/disable feature)
• 64Mb ram
• 4Mb Video
• 2 Gig + 4 Gig Hard drives
• Windows 95 (build ‘a’)

The scanner was:

• HP 6200Cse ScanJet (comes with USB cable)

Problems #1:

• My 1997 PC has no USB port.

Solution #1:

Problem #2:

• Windows 95a, notice the significance of the build number ‘a’, does not support USB and could not detect my new USB card.

Solution #2:

• Upgrade Windows 95a.
• I scoured the internet with hope of finding a simple downloadable fix, but only discovered what others had already come to realize: Upgrade to Windows 98. The other "builds" or upgrades of Windows 95 were apparently released as OEM products without upgrade software built in. That means that you can’t just upgrade to another build, you have to completely reinstall.
• So, though I already had the latest goodies from Microsoft downloaded months ago, like IE 4.0 and saw no need to spend money on what seemed like an upgrade, I found it to be the most feasible solution. The installation was fantastic: I was asked if I wanted to make a back-up copy of all files that would allow me to restore Windows 95a in the future. After I completed the install of Windows 98, I plugged in my USB card and upon reboot, had it detected and working in minutes. In sheer joy, I plugged in my scanner and turned it on, LIVE and discovered that it was instantly detected and ready to go – wow, no need to reboot.