Making Nikon Coolscan 5000 work under Windows 7 (including 64-bit), 8, 10, and 11

The procedure below was compiled for Windows 7. The only other trick you would need to do to install Nikon Scan under Windoes 8, 10, and 11 is to make Windows 8/10/11 install an unsigned driver. It also works for Windows 8 and 10, but you would need to do another trick to install "unsigned driver". See steps in green below, more details here.
 

Warning: Scanners must have the latest Nikon firmware installed for these procedures to work. Currently the only OS capable of updating the scanner’s firmware is Windows XP or Mac OS 10.2.x - 10.4.11. This means you cannot update the firmware without access to either of these OS’s! Also note that even VueScan may not work under Windows 7 if the latest firmware isn’t installed. In short, if your scanner isn’t working when trying these or Vuescan, check your check the firmware.

Before you get started: Remove Vuescan if installed. You can re-install it after these procedures.

1- Install Nikon Scan 4.0.3 (from Nikon's site) drivers for Windows Vista 32-bit. Yes, Vista 32-bit.

For Windows 8, 10, and 11: Normally Windows 8, 10, and 11 do not allow for the installation of unsigned drivers. The Nikon drivers don’t have a signature. Therefore the Windows operation system has to be started in a mode that allows unsigned drivers to be installed. To do this, follow these steps:

• Select “Restart” from the power options menu of the Windows 10 Start Menu. Hold down the SHIFT key while you click “Restart”.

• A light blue screen with the title “Choose an option” comes up. Select “Troubleshoot”.

• Another screen with the title “Troubleshoot” opens. Select “Advanced options”.

• Another screen with the title “Advanced options” opens. Select “Startup Settings”.

• Another screen with the title “Startup Settings” opens. Select “Restart”.

• Once the computer has rebooted you will be given a list of startup settings. Choose “Disable driver signature enforcement” by pressing “F7” or just “7”.

• Once again, Windows will reboot as usual

2- After installing the Nikon Scan software, create a folder called Nikon Files inside the NKScan4 folder located at

C:\Program Files (x86)\Nikon\NkScan4 - Thus the NKScan4 folder now contains the Nikon Files folder and will look like this... C:\Program Files (x86)\Nikon\NkScan4\Nikon Files

3- Download and place the scanners.inf file into the folder you created:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Nikon\NkScan4\Nikon Files

4- Go to the folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Nikon\Driver\ ScanUSB and copy this file NKScnUSD.dll to the same folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Nikon\NkScan4\Nikon Files  that the scanners.inf file is in.

Thus the Nikon Files folder should now contain these two files... NKScnUSD.dll and scanners.inf


Once that’s done….

5- Power up the scanner and make sure the USB cable is connected to the computer.

6- Cancel any dialogue boxes looking for drivers if they appear.

7- Go to Device Manager – Control Panel, Device Manager and look for the "Unknown Device" (your scanner) with the yellow triangle.

8- Right click on it and choose "Update Driver Software" then choose "Browse my computer for driver software"

9- Click "Browse" and find the location or folder where you put the scanners.inf file. Example: C:\Program Files (x86)\Nikon\NkScan4\Nikon Files and click "Next" This will/should install the driver (scanners.inf) you extracted from the zip file for your scanner.

10- That’s it – Your Nikon Scan software should now be fully functional.