XP sp2 USB camera not recognized

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I have a Canon A700 digital camera with a USB output cable. The camera works
fine and I can transfer images using a USB card reader OK.

Trouble is, the camera and card were not designed for this frequent use,
they will wear out, that's why a USB port was provided.

I seem to be in Windows limbo. The camera maker doesn't provide drivers and
installation files for Windows XP. Windows XP Home edition with SP2 has a
Wizard to install cameras and scanners this needs installation of driver
files but they are not available.

The system is supposed to work automatically by the USB connection, but that
consistently gives an error saying USB device not recognized.

From Device Manager I have updated the USB open host drivers with the only
available options but this made no difference. Can anyone help with this very
frustrating little bug? It seems to me many cameras and windows computers are
affected by this not just me.
 
First, you may be able to reduce the number of removal insertions of the
storage card by using a large card, up to the limit that the camera
supports.
Next, USB transfer from the card is much faster than transfer from the
camera. I really doubt that your "not designed for" statement is correct.
There were two driver classes for this camera, WIA ant Twain. The Twain
driver is known NOT to work, according to the references.
The WIA driver may work.
A WIA driver for later canon models may also work. You need to read the XP
compatibility section on the canon website.
Things might be worse. I have two old Kodak digitals that my father bought
some time ago. Both require a serial I/O, use a nonstandard form of a jpeg
file, and will work only with Kodak supplied software. The software and
drivers will not work correctly with windows versions later than 95, making
the cameras virtually unusable with windows.
We did find some Linux software and drivers that work, although it's now
sort of a why bother.

If you really insist on using the camera USB to PC interface, It may be new
camera time!
The same thing is more likely to happen with Vista and not a few older
cameras.

A possibility that I cannot verify--
Some cameras, like two I currently own, have two modes of operation when
connected to a PC, and another if connected vua USB to a compatable printer.
The default mode allows the camera to appear as a storage device (Drive
letter and all that) The optional mode, not well documented, puts the
cameras into a control by PC mode. The control mode requires third party
software to utilise. If your camera is locked/set into either the printer or
PC control modes, the normal software and drivers will likely not function
properly. I was able to ascertain the the A700 does NOT have support for PC
control,
according to a Canon camera remote control software vendor.

Have you tried installing the WIA driver? and perhaps using compatibility
mode to install it?
 
Ted said:
I have a Canon A700 digital camera with a USB output cable. The camera
works
fine and I can transfer images using a USB card reader OK.

Trouble is, the camera and card were not designed for this frequent use,
they will wear out, that's why a USB port was provided.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about wearing out the card or card slot in the camera.
They were both made for the card to be inserted and removed many times.
Other parts of the camera will probably wear out before the card socket. I
always remove the CF cards from my G1 and 10D and then insert them in a card
reader to copy the images to my hard drive. So far the G1 has survived
3500+ images and the 10D has survived over 20,000 images. I'll probably
wear out the mirror mechanism on the 10D long before I wear out the card
slot!

Ron
 
Hi Ron, thanks for your reassurance. I think the plastic door clasps concern
me more than the electronic terminals. I guess I have to accept the
possibility of a battery door held shut with tape if the camera reaches old
age. It's a great little camera, I like everything about it, it's a shame the
Windows bit is flawed.
Ted
 
Hi Chuck thank you for your reply. The camera is new, a current model for
Canon USA. I'm using a 1GB card, but I like to transfer images soon after
taking them which increases the number of card cycles.

It is good to know that USB is slower than card reader, I didn't know that,
maybe I'm not missing so much. I think I want to see what else Canon have
done with Windows-camera user interface, I have no idea what's there.

I have tried installing the WIA driver. I had to get it from the Canon
website. It is also included on the Canon software CD but that has an autorun
feature which won't let me select individual folders and files. So I used
WIA642.exe from Canon website. When I install it everything seems to go well
until the installer screen launches and then it stalls with the message "WIA
driver file for XP not found" and the only choice is to exit the installer. I
tried using the compatibility wizard with Win98/Me selected. The same thing
occurred exactly like the previous time. Thinking there might be a set up
file somewhere causing a problem I tried finding and deleting anything
relating to WIA642.exe. Then I reran the automatic unzip/installer but it
stalled at the same point with the same message. So I'm not sure what to try
next. If you have further suggestions I'd really like to hear from you. It
seems to me this might be a common problem affecting many camera owners. If
someone can find a fix for this they will be very popular with Canon users I
think!
Ted
 
Ted said:
I have a Canon A700 digital camera with a USB output cable. The camera works
fine and I can transfer images using a USB card reader OK.

Trouble is, the camera and card were not designed for this frequent use,
they will wear out, that's why a USB port was provided.

I seem to be in Windows limbo. The camera maker doesn't provide drivers and
installation files for Windows XP. Windows XP Home edition with SP2 has a
Wizard to install cameras and scanners this needs installation of driver
files but they are not available.

The system is supposed to work automatically by the USB connection, but that
consistently gives an error saying USB device not recognized.

From Device Manager I have updated the USB open host drivers with the only
available options but this made no difference. Can anyone help with this very
frustrating little bug? It seems to me many cameras and windows computers are
affected by this not just me.
Click to expand...
 
I had a benq 53 whichworked well for 22 months.U nder guarantee this was
replaced with a benq53+.my pc does not recognize the camera when attempting
to download images,saying that "a usb device is not working". The camera and
cable works with a friends pc.

benq support suggested that i uninstall the u-lead software which came with
the original camera,however windows tells me that an earlier version of the
software needs to be uninstalled first. The supposed earlier version does not
show up when searched for,not surprising since I only installed this once,can
anyone shed light on this for me?
 
benq 53 + warrenty replacement-- The new PC may have a different software
load. That aside, it may be necessary to see if yoou can find a cleanup
utility that will help you find and eliminate Ulead related regisry entries.
Usually you can do this with regedit--but mistakes can take down windows.

Cameras and memory cards. If the camera is not designed to have the memory
cards removed and replaced fairly frequently, get rid of it!
The reason is that other parts of the camera will also be under designed and
built, giving it a short life expectancy.
The ability to remove and replace the memory card is critical, since it is
the only way to get the contents off the memory card without using the
camera battery.
Next, the memory card interface to a PC is normally much faster than a
camera to PC transfer via USB.
 
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