Plustek OpticBook 3600 & am32plus start-up error

by

Symptoms

After installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), my Plustek OpticBook 3600 stopped working.

Detailed description

On restarting my PC, and while the system tray is being populated, an error windows pops up with the message:

“AM32 Plus was unable to find some components of the software”

…with a suggestion to resinstall the scanner software (which I tried without it resolving the software)

The Solution

Thanks to an email from Plustek technical support (slightly vague), the following fixed the issue:

  1. Go to your Windows Start button (bottom left), click Run…, and enter: regedit (in order to start the Registry Editor)
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE and locate and select: iMpacct Corp (ie. it is highlighted in blue)
  3. Right-click on “iMpacct Corp”, and select Permissions… and a window will appear “Permissions for iMpacct Corp” with a single tab “Security”.
  4. The “Group or user names” section at the top is empty, so click the Add… button below it, to display a new pop-up window, “Select Users or Groups”.
  5. In the empty section “Enter the object names to select (examples)”, enter the arbitrary name: Everyone, click OK to confirm and return to the previous window, which will now show “Everyone” in the “Group or user names” window. If it is not already highlighted, click on “Everyone” to highligh it.
  6. Below the lower section windows “Permissions for Everyone”, click the Advanced button, which will show a new pop-up window “Advanced Security Settings for iMpacct Corp”, with the Permissions tab selected.
  7. One “Permissions entries” is showing: Allow Everyone Read Only…”, ensure it is highlighted, and click on the Edit… button, which will popup a new window, “Permission Entry for iMpacct Corp”
  8. In the “Permission” section, on the first row “Full Control” and in the Allow column, click the checkbox. The other checkboxes in the Allow column will automatically be checked too. Click OK to return to the previous window.
  9. In the Advanced Security Settings for iMpacct Corp”, click OK to return to the “Permissions for iMpacct Corp” window, and click OK to confirm and close the last pop-up window.
  10. Go to the Registry Editor’s File menu and select Exit. Restart your PC, and I found the AM32plus error message no longer appeared during startup, and my scanning software loaded as expected.

Other instructions were suggested, but I did not find them necessary. A similar solution for Windows Vista is described on the “The Student Tablet PC” forum by Curtis Philips on March 2nd, 2008 at 3:25 am.