Must Software Be Installed

[wellsie]

I have been using a CF card reader ever since getting my S45, but I was going to bring a laptop on an upcoming trip and was thinking of downloading photos directly from the camera so as not to have to bring the card reader. All the documentation I read makes it sound as if I MUST install the Canon software before using the USB cable to download photos, but I've heard so many negative things about it. I am running XP ... do I really need to install software, or are the necessary drivers really there. Also, can I do any damage if I don't install the sofware, or does it just not work?

[steven]

The driver to support communications with the camera is what needs to be installed before you connect the cable.

It is possible that XP might know how to communicate with the camera without this driver but I doubt it.

It will not hurt either you camera or you system to connect the USB cable without installing the software first.
Worst that will happen is that the camera will appear as an unknown or unconfigured device in the device manager window.

[prime80]

Try it without installing the software. If it works, then you're good to go. If it doesn't, you've only wasted a minute or so trying to find out. FYI, I've loaded the software on my PC and laptop and haven't had any problems with it at all. If you just want the USB driver for the camera, you can probably download it from the Canon site.

[RodneyCyr]

I bought a CF card reader that slips into the PC-card slot on a laptop. It cost about $15 at Best Buy. Works fine.

Note - my PC-card accepts only "thin" CF cards. One of my older cards, significantly thicker than the others, will not fit into it.

[rfreschner]

I bought a CF card reader that slips into the PC-card slot on a laptop. It cost about $15 at Best Buy. Works fine.

Note - my PC-card accepts only "thin" CF cards. One of my older cards, significantly thicker than the others, will not fit into it.

How's the speed? Who makes it?

[wellsie]

Thanks so much everyone for the quick and helpful responses. I wanted to let you know that I tried it per Prime 80's suggestion and Steven's assurances that it wouldn't harm the camera or cause computer problems, and at first it didn't work, but I reread the section in the manual about this (for the 5th time!), and it finally clicked that I just had to change the setting in the camera to PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) and XP would recognize the camera. It worked great.

I had done a search of this forum and the Web about this, but I was confused by this thread:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-21976.html
which I misunderstood to mean that if you had XP you definitely needed to download WIA drivers.

Thanks again for all of your help!