Windows Metro does not support scanners

D

DPI

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 20, 2013
Messages
12,885
Apparently scanners are another thing Microsoft has decided we don't need in the future. I looked to see how to scan a document with Metro and come to find they didn't even create an API for scanners. Disheartening to say the least. But "adapt to change" is what Windows8 fans constantly tell everyone.

I realize regular windows desktop scanning still works but the takeaway here is if they're trying to 'unify' and want to ween people off the desktop, they're sure not making it easy.

There isn't a scanner API for Windows Store apps.
--Rob
Click to expand...


http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Fo.../thread/24928c8d-9803-40ae-b2df-5426da5cf1d0/
 
I don't think the goal of Windows 8 is to get people to stop using the desktop, it's to introduce them to a hybrid OS with the goal of pushing Windows tablet and smartphone sales, since what you see on your desktop will be similar and integrated with your tablet and smartphone.

Legacy programs alone dictate the desktop shouldn't go anywhere.
 
Nah, Metro currently does not have the ability to communicate with any scanner device. It might change in the future, but for the moment that's what it is.
 
DPI said:
I realize regular windows desktop scanning still works but the takeaway here is if they're trying to 'unify' and want to ween people off the desktop, they're sure not making it easy.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of things that the Windows RT API doesn't support compared to the desktop. Whatever pundits are saying, I find it unlikely that Microsoft, at least for now, is really trying to replace the desktop apps with Windows RT apps, the WinRT API at this point simply doesn't many conventions of desktop app development because WinRT is targeted primarily for resource constrained devices and touch. In time no doubt the WinRT API will evolve, it's evolving right now in Blue to allow for better multitasking and multiple monitor support.

For the world that WinRT is targeted, the mobile world, cameras are the scanners. There a plenty of WinRT apps that support scanning capabilities through cameras. I think the Bank of America Windows 8 app supports a common mobile camera scanner capability and allows checks deposits through cameras.
 
Tsumi said:
I don't think the goal of Windows 8 is to get people to stop using the desktop, it's to introduce them to a hybrid OS with the goal of pushing Windows tablet and smartphone sales, since what you see on your desktop will be similar and integrated with your tablet and smartphone.

Legacy programs alone dictate the desktop shouldn't go anywhere.
Click to expand...

Then maybe its incumbent on Microsoft to convey and educate people on these gotchas and shortcomings ahead of time so people dont get false expectations and are then disappointed later.

Average end users on desktop computers dont really care about Microsoft's "tablet and smartphone strategy and vision" - they just want Windows to work without a lot of confusion or schizofrenic back-and-forth between the tablet mode interface and the classic desktop.
 
DPI said:
Average end users on desktop computers dont really care about Microsoft's "tablet and smartphone strategy and vision" - they just want Windows to work without a lot of confusion or schizofrenic back-and-forth between the tablet mode interface and the classic desktop.
Click to expand...

Average users on desktop computers is a shrinking market as well. For some reason it seems that many vocal Windows 8 opponents don't want to acknowledge this. At any rate, if we're talking about Windows 8 and Windows RT, there's no issue here. I have a scanner in my color laser jet all-in-one and it works perfectly in Windows 8.
 
heatlesssun said:
Average users on desktop computers is a shrinking market as well. For some reason it seems that many vocal Windows 8 opponents don't want to acknowledge this.
Click to expand...
I fully acknowledge that casual PC users are moving from laptops to smart phones and tablets for facebook, email, etc. Microsoft still made a mistake with 8 regardless of this.

For some reason it seems that many vocal Windows 8 proponents don't want to acknowledge there is no proof having a hybrid OS is the way to go.
 
Because it's a tablet focused part of the OS...and tablets are junk consumption devices...

Anyway, you could probably bypass the close to useless section of the OS's lackings by using network scanning (like Webscan on HP scanners) which would just come up on a Internet window (though usually not as high quality)? Though if your scanner doesn't support that you can't obviously.
 
bigdogchris said:
For some reason it seems that many vocal Windows 8 proponents don't want to acknowledge there is no proof having a hybrid OS is the way to go.
Click to expand...

And where's the proof that Windows 8 would be better off just being a desktop only OS? If there were some conclusive proof or information as to how Windows should develop into the future then I would imagine that Microsoft would probably follow that path.

I use Windows 8 as hybrid everyday and I understand that most people are this time are not using it that way. Windows 8 does virtually everything that I do and use in Windows 7 and considerably more without a keyboard and mouse. Yes Windows 8 needs improvement, but if 8 is doing everything for me that 7 did and more, I don't know how that's a bad thing. But I understand that it will take more Windows users using this type of hardware and that too looks like it's going to get better and cheaper than it is now.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Because it's a tablet focused part of the OS...and tablets are junk consumption devices...

Anyway, you could probably bypass the close to useless section of the OS's lackings by using network scanning (like Webscan on HP scanners) which would just come up on a Internet window (though usually not as high quality)? Though if your scanner doesn't support that you can't obviously.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? You'd just use a scanner on the desktop the way you've always used a scanner with desktop applications. My useless Windows 8 tablets work just fine with my color laser all-in-one scanner.
 
SuperSubZero said:
?

http://welcome.solutions.brother.co....html?reg=as&prod=mfcj432w_as&c=as_ot&lang=en

It's an app in the app store.
Click to expand...

Well I feel stupid, h8ters can do that to people. Thanks for the link! Just so happens that my color laser all-in-one is a Brother device, downloaded this puppy on my Clover Trail tablet and what do you know, scanning within a Metro app, even scans multiple pages from the document feeder automatically. A bit primitive in that all it does is allow for JPEGs of each page, no PDF or Word document creation.

But the moral of this story is yet again another criticism of Windows 8 that isn't necessarily true from those that don't use the OS much or really know what is possible or available and aren't even trying to figure anything out. And in this case I even have scanner from the company that made this app and didn't even know that this existed.

I really wish h8ters would try a little harder to get their facts straight. They aren't doing anyone any favors by routinely missing the facts.
 
heatlesssun said:
And in this case I even have scanner from the company that made this app and didn't even know that this existed.
Click to expand...


What a coincidence! So a vendor-specific hackjob implementation that requires a back-end driver to work around Metro means I dont have my facts straight in the OP that Microsoft didn't see fit to bother with scanner API in Metro. Oh-kay.
 
Last edited:
heatlesssun said:
Yes, we were both wrong. You however haven't admitted that you were.
Click to expand...

Please. The point in the OP still stands. A single vendor with a hackjob implementation isn't a native Metro solution.

Give the marketing campaign a rest for 5min, seriously.
 
DPI said:
Please. The point in the OP still stands. A single vendor with a hackjob implementation isn't a native Metro solution.
Click to expand...

The OP is you, it doesn't stand in that Windows Store apps can do the very thing you said they couldn't do. And have you even tried this supposedly not native Metro solution for which you've not defined why it's not a native Metro solution? You're throwing random statements at this point. Less than the marketing speak you're complaining about. Do you even have a scanner or a Windows 8 device?
 
I think we all know Microsoft is done implementing all WinRT API features. No reason to believe they have any plans to continue to add more features they couldn't complete in a 1.0 product.

/s
 
heatlesssun said:
What are you talking about? You'd just use a scanner on the desktop the way you've always used a scanner with desktop applications. My useless Windows 8 tablets work just fine with my color laser all-in-one scanner.
Click to expand...

Read the OP, this is about Metro... Using something not in Metro isn't exactly a solution to using something in Metro..

Glad you finally agree they're useless. :p
 
heatlesssun said:
But the moral of this story is yet again another criticism of Windows 8 that isn't necessarily true from those that don't use the OS much or really know what is possible or available and aren't even trying to figure anything out.
Click to expand...

That's a lame out. What if you have a scanner from one of the other companies? This is just another example how Metro is a badly planned poor attempt at whatever they were trying to do, and definitely shouldn't be praised for being a half assed OS, making it hard to understand what 3 people are praising so much.
 
DeathPrincess said:
That's a lame out. What if you have a scanner from one of the other companies? This is just another example how Metro is a badly planned poor attempt at whatever they were trying to do, and definitely shouldn't be praised for being a half assed OS, making it hard to understand what 3 people are praising so much.
Click to expand...

There are some things it does well and other things they can improve on. No one has said that it is perfect. It's just that there are multiple people repeatedly saying things that are either 1. hyperbole, or 2. downright false, with the resulting interpretation that Windows 8 is practically downright unusable in any shape or form.
 
heatlesssun said:
And where's the proof that Windows 8 would be better off just being a desktop only OS? If there were some conclusive proof or information as to how Windows should develop into the future then I would imagine that Microsoft would probably follow that path.
Click to expand...
Well lets see:

1. No one else on the planet does the same OS on all devices ... for a reason.
2. Windows 8 has a bad reputation right now. If it would of shipped without the hybrid bull crap it would not have the reputation and more people would of upgraded to 8, because I know more people did not upgrade because of Metro than those who upgraded because of Metro.
3. Windows 8 sales have not been great on any platform. Doesn't that prove something? Yes PC sales are declining but wasn't the whole point of Windows 8 to make a splash in tablets? Where are the great tablet numbers that this whole process was supposed to improve?

I use Windows 8 as hybrid everyday and I understand that most people are this time are not using it that way. Windows 8 does virtually everything that I do and use in Windows 7 and considerably more without a keyboard and mouse.
Click to expand...
An experienced power user can probably find their way around Windows 8, but it's not a friendly OS for people who have been doing things differently for 20 years.
Yes Windows 8 needs improvement, but if 8 is doing everything for me that 7 did and more, I don't know how that's a bad thing. But I understand that it will take more Windows users using this type of hardware and that too looks like it's going to get better and cheaper than it is now.
Click to expand...
Windows 7 didn't need improvement and Windows 8 wouldn't of either if they shipped the desktop version without Metro and left that for tablets to be "fixed" separately.

Windows 8 would of really helped the environment I work in because of the great 'behind the scenes' stuff they did with it. But they had to slap that stupid UI on top of it and ruin the OS, just to try and force feed their UI on us so we buy their tablets. That doesn't sound like a great consumer oriented decision.
 
Windows metro apps are the devil; Why is my favorite feature not in a metro app...

:rolleyes:

So a feature that works perfectly well in desktop mode and was most likely near the bottom of the milestone list for a 1.0 touch/metro API interface is left off. Yeah time to get my pitchfork out.
 
bigdogchris said:
Well lets see:

1. No one else on the planet does the same OS on all devices ... for a reason.
Click to expand...

No one else has a desktop OS with 90% market share in a market that's considered on the decline. Microsoft is simply leveraging a valuable and powerful resource and trying to move it forward as there's little indication that the desktop market is really ever going to see robust growth again.

bigdogchris said:
2. Windows 8 has a bad reputation right now. If it would of shipped without the hybrid bull crap it would not have the reputation and more people would of upgraded to 8, because I know more people did not upgrade because of Metro than those who upgraded because of Metro.
Click to expand...

Windows 8 has a mixed reputation at this point. As much as opponents want to call Windows 8 a disaster it's still making a lot of money for Microsoft and is slowly gaining market share.

bigdogchris said:
3. Windows 8 sales have not been great on any platform. Doesn't that prove something? Yes PC sales are declining but wasn't the whole point of Windows 8 to make a splash in tablets? Where are the great tablet numbers that this whole process was supposed to improve?
Click to expand...

Part of the problem with Windows 8 tablets is that they aren't really out there in great numbers and right now the prices are a bit high and the hardware a little lacking particularly at the lower end. This was expected by a lot of people from the start. As prices get better, Blue is released and the hardware improves I think Windows 8 tablet sales will increase, however I have no idea to what degree that will be.

bigdogchris said:
An experienced power user can probably find their way around Windows 8, but it's not a friendly OS for people who have been doing things differently for 20 years.
Windows 7 didn't need improvement and Windows 8 wouldn't of either if they shipped the desktop version without Metro and left that for tablets to be "fixed" separately.
Click to expand...

Everything can stand improvement. I certainly called for the need for Windows 7 to become more tablet friendly. People seem to forget this but there actually was a good bit of work done in 7 to make it more touch and tablet friendly, it was the first Windows OS with OS level touch APIs. At any rate it really wasn't enough to get Windows 7 much traction in the tablet space.

bigdogchris said:
Windows 8 would of really helped the environment I work in because of the great 'behind the scenes' stuff they did with it. But they had to slap that stupid UI on top of it and ruin the OS, just to try and force feed their UI on us so we buy their tablets. That doesn't sound like a great consumer oriented decision.
Click to expand...

I've said plenty of times that Microsoft has a lot of work to do with desktop only users, maybe bringing back the old UI helps with that but it does nothing to help with the longer term challenges Windows faces. And I think that it can be said that if people are buying fewer and fewer desktops and laptops that customer needs are not longer being served by them like they used to.
 
heatlesssun said:
So who here has used their scanner from their Android tablet or iPad?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that's comparable.

Under Windows 8, made for desktops and laptops which have appropriate host USB ports and vast OS driver support, Metro apps do not have a scanner interface. How something so basic could be left out of WIA was why I found it so amazingly half-baked.
 
Monkey God said:
Are you implying Win8 is a tablet only OS?
Click to expand...

Out of the box it certainly acts like they only had tablets in mind - "could'a fooled me". Microsoft's tablet initiative with Metro has taken the desktop hostage. And trying to force a phone/tablet UI onto desktops as the default interface as part of some grand vision to get a metro store entrenched is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
 
pxc said:
I'm not sure that's comparable.

Under Windows 8, made for desktops and laptops which have appropriate host USB ports and vast OS driver support, Metro apps do not have a scanner interface. How something so basic could be left out of WIA was why I found it so amazingly half-baked.
Click to expand...

The point of Metro at this point was to provide Windows the ability to support a touch/physics based app model like other modern mobile OS while also increasing power efficiency and working well on resource constrained devices. The idea wasn't to replicate every feature of desktop applications, the desktop is already there, what would be the point of that?

I guess what I find ironic about this thread is that the OP has probably never scanned anything from a tablet or Windows while I actually have done it a bit. So would it be nice to have WIA support in Metro apps? Sure, and probably in time it will come but it's simply not a capability that it is important to the focus of Metro apps. Desktop apps are still there and can some can even be used with touch on a tablet. I've scanned documents into OneNote this way.
 
DPI said:
Out of the box it certainly acts like they only had tablets in mind - "could'a fooled me". Microsoft's tablet initiative with Metro has taken the desktop hostage. And trying to force a phone/tablet UI onto desktops as the default interface as part of some grand vision to get a metro store entrenched is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
Click to expand...

Sure, because so many tablets are hooked up to keyboard and mice and dual monitors like my primary Windows 8 desktop.
 
heatlesssun said:
The point of Metro at this point was to provide Windows the ability to support a touch/physics based app model like other modern mobile OS...
Click to expand...
But lack of scanner support is just one symptom of many Metro problems, where the non-integration with the rest of the OS is divided by an incomplete set of services in the sandboxed environment. It would be one thing if MS had succeeded in pushing Windows forward, but this Windows 8 Metro mess just illustrates how half-baked it is.
 
pxc said:
But lack of scanner support is just one symptom of many Metro problems, where the non-integration with the rest of the OS is divided by an incomplete set of services in the sandboxed environment. It would be one thing if MS had succeeded in pushing Windows forward, but this Windows 8 Metro mess just illustrates how half-baked it is.
Click to expand...

How can Windows move forward if it has no capacity to run on the exploding number of small, thin, light, power efficient and resource constrained devices out there?

Part of the of problem with Windows 8 is a culture clash between the idea intrinsic to the nature of tablets, good enough computing, and a number of longtime Windows users that just want more and more complexity. Unfortunately for Microsoft the world seems to be moving away from complex clients.
 
heatlesssun said:
How can Windows move forward if it has no capacity to run on the exploding number of small, thin, light, power efficient and resource constrained devices out there?
Click to expand...
That has nothing to do with a general purpose Windows 8 OS. Windows RT problems are separate, and mostly due to some delusional design decisions, those problems have turned Windows 8 into the wishy-washy dual use mess it is.

You're completely missing how profound a stumble this is for MS. History will not be kind.
 
pxc said:
That has nothing to do with a general purpose Windows 8 OS. Windows RT problems are separate, and mostly due to some delusional design decisions, those problems have turned Windows 8 into the wishy-washy dual use mess it is.

You're completely missing how profound a stumble this is for MS. History will not be kind.
Click to expand...

Windows 8 has it's problems but I don't think they are nearly as bad as you're making them out to be. There are a lot of people around here that are big Windows 8 opponents and say that with simply a Start Button and Menu they'd be all over Windows 8.

Microsoft is going to address these issues, I have no idea what the answers are but if Windows 8.1 holds true to form to Windows mythos of the alternating good-release, bad-release cycle, 8.1 should be better.

As much of a Windows fanboy as you think I am I actually believe that Microsoft's problems with Windows are far deeper than any particular issues with Windows 8. The desktop isn't going away but the market is shrinking. I don't think there's a lot that can done about it, it's just how the world is working these days, not enough people care about incremental desktop improvements. At best I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Windows 8 and beyond.

I do however think that overall Microsoft is doing the right thing with Windows 8 because, again, where is there to go on the desktop?
 
I dont want to scan from any Metro app, heck I dont want to scan from any desktop app usually.

These days most places use scan to email or scan to file share anyhow. At home I use scansnap scanners that have their own software.

Works great on Win 8 still ;)
 
Grentz said:
I dont want to scan from any Metro app, heck I dont want to scan from any desktop app usually.

These days most places use scan to email or scan to file share anyhow. At home I use scansnap scanners that have their own software.

Works great on Win 8 still ;)
Click to expand...

or scan to SD card.
 
heatlesssun said:
There are a lot of people around here that are big Windows 8 opponents and say that with simply a Start Button and Menu they'd be all over Windows 8.
Click to expand...

There's a reason why Microsoft wouldn't do that. It would make it identical to windows 7, and the delusion that this was a new OS and not just 7 with a few lame features would crumble. Plus they couldn't use their popular products to try and push their joke anti developer/anti consumer/pro them "store", just the unpopular ones.
 
heatlesssun said:
So who here has used their scanner from their Android tablet or iPad?
Click to expand...

I have with my Epson on my iPad.

epson%20scan%201.jpg


epson%20scan%202.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top