Wow John - I was about to buy a "low end HP (HP Scanjet 2400)" :-o

You'd think manufacturers would have nailed down USB interface problems
by now...

Do you think me using an un-updated version of Win XP could be
responsible? I'm quite happy with my Win XP Professional, v5.1 (Build
2600) that I've never seen any reason to upgrade it. If possible I'd
like to avoid upgrading it as well, the last time I did I seemed to
notice that it made my computer slower and more susceptible to freezes.

Would motherboard drivers be a possible factor? I tried downloading my
motherboard's drivers from Abit's website. However, when I run setup, I
get a message that it is checking my computer's configuration, then
setup quits. Hmm...I wonder if I should start another thread on whether
other people have problems upgrading their Abit NF7 motherboard's
drivers...