My son got it working yesterday afternoon (!!)
Here are some hints for installing 5200C on a clean-build WinME machine:
Unplug USB cable from PC.
Delete any Hewlett-Packard folders which hold old precisionscan s/w; empty recycle bin.
Copy "app" folder from CD to the desktop.

Restart to safe mode and delete the scanner from control panel/system/devices/imaging devices.

Plug in USB to PC.
Restart to normal mode and force windows to load the win98 legacy drivers from the CD, responding
NO when asked to use newer drivers. When PrecisionScan s/w starts to load, exit at the first clean
opportunity.

Restart to safe mode and run setup.exe in the app folder you copied to the desktop. This will
appear to install the parallel port version of the software.

run msconfig.exe and disable the loading of the hp scanner monitor routine which puts the
parallel scanner icon (with the big red cross in it) in the system tray.

reboot and try pressing the scanner green button.

See how you get on.

If you want further details, let me know.



=-=-=-=-

FOUND SOLUTION FOR ALL USB CONNECTED 5200C USERS! The solution is simple: don't use USB, use the LPT port. Since virtually every product works in windows XP using the USB ports, somthing funny must be the case with the development of drivers by HP. Surely it worked using windows 2000 without troubles, but if Microsoft changed the driver model (wich they apparently did), HP must have known about it, and they haven't responded on it. Neither are they responding on customer's complaining: It's easier to let the customer bye a new scanner (from Canon or Epson off coarse, cause who wants to by a scanner without support?). Yes, I'm cinical, cause they should have done more on driver development, or advise customers to use the LPT port, wich I did, and it works like a charm. A little slower, but compared to 10 restarts of a scan, using the USB port, way faster. So the scanner work perfect, for more than 5 years, but HP doens't. 2 stars because the lacking support!

=-=-=-=- =

I bought this scanner in 1998/9 brand new. Installation was a breeze and it worked well from the start. Good quality pictures (up to 1600 dpi) with good colour reproduction and easy to use software. Installed on windows 2000. Problems arose with an upgrade to WindowsXP, as the scanner would cause XP to hang and I Couldnt find out what was wrong (looks like XP broke compatibility). Eventually setup the scanner with Linux (gentoo with 2.6 kernel), and works straight away. This scanner is well built, I am writing this review in 2005, I have had this scanner longer then any other peripherals (all others fell apart (e.g. epson) ) and its build quailty and reliability is unmatched. The only issue that that some dust has managed to get inside the scanner, so I cannot clean it without taking the scanner apart (something I wont do as it is still working so well). And this scanner was heavily used, as it was bought for a graphic/web design company I cannot comment on HP's customer service because I never had a need to call them (thats how it should be with products). 5 stars for a well built, reliable product with perfect linux support. It has outlasted newer scanners which I had bought recently and is still going strong. I dont know whats with the ranting, but I found all the bugs the scanner had were on windows (esp XP, see above). As such its not the scanners fault but rather Windows bugginess (or the drivers, which i doubt as they worked on win2k).