I bought the Vuescan scanner software a couple of weeks ago based on the claims of owner Ed Hamrick on his Web site (that it works with my scanner, the Microtek ArtixScan 1800f) and recommendations on this Web site of other 1800f owners. I downloaded the test software and performed a half-dozen scans, and it seemed to do a good job, so I bought it. Just my luck, a half-dozen scans later, the 1800f starts knocking loudly and shuts down, never completing the scans. It did this on both small scans (less than 1 mb) and larger scans of my 4x5s. I contacted Hamrick and he told me to delete the ".ini" file, restoring the default settings. That worked fine for another half-dozen scans, then the problem recurred.

Per Hamrick's request, I e-mailed him the settings I was using when the problem occurred, but surprisingly he had no comment. Given the claims on his Web site that it works with the 1800f and his lack of interest in helping solve the problem, I asked for my money back. (He said in a later post that in order to help me I now had to go through this long and, at least for me, complicated process that would take too much space to explain here.) He declined to return my money, noting that as his Web site states, he does not give refunds. I would consider such a policy fair IF the software worked as claimed. But at least for my scanner, it does not (indeed, it sounds like something is about to break), and I am at a loss as to what to do to fix the problem. I sense I will just be writing it off as a lesson in purchasing software over the Web. Has anyone else ever encountered similar problems? Any suggestions on what I might do?