What to do when a device has no driver for Windows 7 but it has Vista, XP drivers

Posted by Mehper C. Palavuzlar on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Mehper C. Palavuzlar
Published on 2012-06-15T14:43:26Z Indexed on 2012/06/15 15:19 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 272

Filed under:

windows-7

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Windows

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drivers

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compatibility

This has always been a bothersome matter for me. Some devices (printers, scanners, etc.) have drivers for older versions of Windows (Vista, XP, 2000, NT) but no driver for Windows 7. What are my chances to install such devices on Windows 7?

Example case:

I have a Sharp printer & scanner (Sharp AR-122E N) which I have used for my old Windows XP based PC. Now I want to install it on a Windows 7 x64 based PC. Windows 7 cannot load its driver. I used the original driver CD but when I run the setup.exe (which is included in AR122EN111.exe, 6713KB), it says

Cannot install driver on this operating system. Supported operating systems are: Windows 2000, XP, Vista.

I tried to install the driver using compatibility settings. I tried Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3, but to no avail. The setup gave the same error.

I also googled for Windows 7 driver for "Sharp AR-122E N" but it only listed the original driver that I tried. The official site of Sharp does not even list the driver for this product.

In the past, the compatibility setting workaround did work for some devices, but this time it failed.

What else can I do to overcome this problem?

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