SOME parallel scanners work under Windows.
Check out
http://www.buzzard.org.uk/jonathan/scanners.html for some info on various scanners that work. I have a Parallel scanner here at the office - an Agfa - and it won't work, they've abandoned their scanner business, but they STILL won't release protocol info to Linux developers, citing intellectual property issues. Bastards. If they abandoned the market, why won't they release the handshaking protocol? Even if they were still in the market, what intellectual property could be stolen by releasing the protocol?