I have a ScanSnap S1300i. It has been working fine, but to prep for the move to 64-bit apps I have downloaded the new ScanSnap Home software and I seem to have hit a nasty licensing trick.
I sometimes connect my scanner to my iMac here at home. Other times I take my scanner on the road and use it with my MacBook Pro. Now it seems I must buy a new license to use the scanner with an additional computer.
Has anyone else encountered this? What has been your experience here?
Maybe I am old-fashioned, but this seems like a dirty way to do business to me.
You may have just saved me a lot of frustration! I originally downloaded the ScanSnap Home software sometime the first week of this month (I remember because I am a teacher and I did this just before we went back to school). Since then I’ve been trying to deal with this in my spare time, which has been sparse. I never did buy a license because the cheap side of me kept thinking there must be another way.
The offline software may be the very thing I need. Downloading now. On my connection that will take about 4.5 hours for almost 800 MB. Noticed the release date was the 10th which would have been after I was originally looking for this. Never crossed my mind to look again.
Will report back on my progress some time this weekend.
My browser initially overestimated the download time by two hours. Now that I’ve had more time to read, installed, and setup, here’s what I know.
The offline installer is the same as the other, except that it’s larger because it downloads everything on the front end. End result, same software.
When you set up your scanner you MUST have an Internet connection. You are no longer a customer, but a user. The device must go online through the ScanSnap Home software to register and is tied to the specific computer running the software.
I suspect the ScanSnap will not run under non-Fujitsu made software, but I could be wrong.
If you want to run the scanner anonymously you can only use it with one computer at a time. If you attempt to sign out to change computers too many times you are forced to wait out a waiting period. I do not know how long this is.
If you want to use the scanner as I want to their rules of the game force you to create an account with Fujitsu, even if you don’t plan to use their cloud storage service. You are limited to five devices.
So I have my scanner working at no extra cost. Can’t say I think much about all the hoops I had to jump through to do this. I would really prefer not to have to register myself with a company just to scan documents that contain either personal business that needs to be kept confidential or family history information that the vast majority of the world would find uninteresting.
The Pro version includes OCR (I haven’t used it so I don’t know how it compares to others). Free trial; no time limit but it watermarks. I’ve had it for many years now and it’s well supported.
I suspect that it’s not really the scanner that’s limited to one computer, but the OCR software. Which amounts to the same thing if that’s what you need the scanner for.
