PaintShop Pro 2023 25.2.0.58 x64 don’t recognize Canon PIXMA TS8351 scanner – neither TWAIN nor WIA

[Ken Berry]

As a sort of footnote to what I wrote above, this thread has continued to intrigue me. I really used to like the old 1990s Canoscan LiDE 25 for its simplicity and speed linked to good quality scans. But Canon discontinued support after Windows 7. I have nevertheless installed the drivers for Win 7 into my Win 11 computer. They are of course 32 bit.

I also installed the last Canon MF Tools 4.9, also dating from Win 7 which was the toolbox for a variety of Canon scanners. That used to work well with the LiDE 25 but it wouldn't even see the scanner on my Win 11 computer. I even tried installing several earlier versions of MF Tools, but they too didn't work.

In my research on the subject I saw a suggestion to add C:\Windows\twain-32\CNQL25 to Control Panel > User Accounts > Change my Environment Variables > System Variables, and call it Scan in the lefthand column. I have no idea if that did anything, but I did it.

I was trying to get 32 bit graphics programs or with 32 bit capabilities to use the LiDE 25 but nothing seemed to work. I even downloaded the MS Windows Scan app, which is 64 bit but supposed to cover just about any scanner. It too didn't work. Windows 11 could detect the scanner in Control Panel > Devices and Cameras, and even detected the old driver I had installed. But as I said, none of the other programs could even see the scanner.

Until, more out of desperation than anything else, I reverted to the 32 bit version of PSP 2022. I went to File > Import and was going to use 'From Camera or Scanner' but thought I would first look at 'TWAIN Source'. Much to my surprise, it listed the LiDE 25, so I selected it and went to 'TWAIN Acquire'. Even more to my surprise, that brought up the usual TWAIN interface and the scan proceeded normally, and an excellent image appeared in PSP2022 for editing.

As I said, I have no idea if C:\Windows\twain-32\CNQL25 actually did anything. But I thought I had already tried PSP 2022 a couple of weeks ago and failed. But now at least PSP2022 x32 is the one and only app which allows me access once again to an old but excellent scanner!