[sane-devel] Running a scanner's Windows application under an emulator?

[donald kenney]

Basically, yes.  They create a virtual machine window into which you 
install a licensed copy Windows of Windows.  Then you install the Windows 
driver and application software for your scanner, possibly work your way 
through some problems related to both the virtual system and the real 
system trying to talk to the same device.  Then, if nothing goes too wrong 
and there aren't any insurmountable timing problems, you have the scanner 
running.  Getting scanned images out of the virtual machine may also 
present a few problems, but it almost certainly will be possible to 
overcome them.

Note that I have never actually run a scanner in a VM although I tried 
once.  Unfortunately, the scanner died -- I think without help from the VM 
-- before I could get all the necessary Windows stuff installed and 
working right.  I have run other USB devices in a VM (qemu) with 
Windows installed without huge problems.

On Thu, 12 Nov 2009, Mike B. wrote:

> Thanks for all the replies regarding running a scanner's Windows
> software.
>  
> How does it work with the vmware/virtualbox? do these applications create
> a window (for example in Gnome) which is a `virtual windows machine'
> (looks like a windows desktop) and I can run the scanner application in
> there?.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mike.
> 
> 
>