Windows Vista (and possibly 7) broken scaner

[piggynuts]

So I do remote tech work all day and ran into the first puzzle I could not fix w/out OS reinstall, the printer communicated fine with the system, both the HP software and Windows. However, scanning failed to no avail, both with the HP software, Windows Fax & Scan, and other 3rd party software.  Every trick in the book was attempted which will be listed below, and another brand new Canon printer with a seperate USB cable had the same probolem.  OS reinstall remedied the situation. 

Attempted fixes before OS reinstall that did not fix it:
Full virus checks
Removing antivirus
SFC (no issues)
Quick hardware check passed (HD, mem, temps)
System restore to when scanner was working no fix
All in one repair   
Services repair
Internet repair (resets firewall) 
Turning off print spooler, deleting all contents of printer driver folders, completely deleting all traces of printers from registry under HKLM->System->Current Control-> Printers
Rebooting and readding printers via Windows manually and trying again (still could not communicate with scanner)
Moving to every USB port on the PC
Trying new USB cable
Adding the printer software using the CD
Trying 3rd party TWAIN software to communicate with scanner
I do not remember and will repost if I find out, the error was 3,156, 64 for scanning. 
Googling the error message no success

Is there a trick to be able to fix a scanner communication issue manually w/out OS reinstall?  Thanks ! ! ! !

[Shane]

Is there a trick to be able to fix a scanner communication issue manually w/out OS reinstall?  Thanks ! ! ! !

That depends on how it broke

Turning off print spooler, deleting all contents of printer driver folders, completely deleting all traces of printers from registry under HKLM->System->Current Control-> Printer

Only good for printers, scanners dont normally have any files there.

The scanner does need to use the twain service in Windows, did you check to make sure it isnt disabled and that it can start?

A lot of times if it isnt a driver problem then it is a twain service problem.

Shane

[piggynuts]

The service that I checked after researching was UPNP device host, some research suggested I set that to automatic rather than manual it did not help.

I did not look into any Twain service, but I believe this all in one repair here sets services back to default so that would have been set to the correct status?

Any easy way to reinstall the twain service ? 

[Shane]

Helps if I call the service by its correct name lol

Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms630368%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Check to see if you can start that service. Yes my repair puts it to the default startup, but doesnt do anything else with it yet. So see if you can start it manually if it isnt running.

Shane

[piggynuts]

Making a note to self for next time, thanks ! If I see it fixed the issue I'll come back and comment, that one got OS reinstalled so no checking that one lol.