Nikon Coolscan & Nikon Scan 4.0 on Windows 7/8
We now live in a digital age where every smart-phone has a camera and images can be posted on-line almost immediately. The older generation of photographers can still remember a time when photography involved loading film into a camera and having it developed. It usually toke several days before the photographs were ready.
Even if one has switched to digital photography since, large archives of images on film still exist. To allow these old images on film to become usable in the digital age, you need a way to scan them. Investing in a high-end film scanner (e.g Nikon Coolscan LS-8000 ED) made sense in the early days of digital cameras with low resolution. It allowed for extended use of investments in analog camera equipment and produced better results than the digital cameras at that time. A lot has changed since then and high-end cameras now offer resolution that rivals film.
On the downside, computer hardware and operating systems have become obsolete making it harder to use this scanning equipment. E.g. the Nikon Scan driver and software were not updated to work after Windows XP. Even parts are getting scares and it might not be very long before Nikon stops servicing Nikon Coolscans.
A while ago I found an article "Nikon Coolscan and Nikon Scan 4.0: Driver for Windows Vista 64 bit, Windows 7 64 bit and Windows 8 64 bit" online, that describes how get the Nikon Scan 4.0 driver working on Windows 7/8. After applying the steps I can now use the Nikon Coolscan and Nikon Scan 4.0 on Windows 7, giving it a new lease on live.
Reference material:
Nikon Coolscan and Nikon Scan 4.0: Driver for Windows Vista 64 bit, Windows 7 64 bit and Windows 8 64 bit
http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/scanner/scoolscan_8000_ed/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon#Film_scanners
http://www.didero.nl/index.php/nikon-coolscans
https://petapixel.com/2015/04/24/12-reasons-photographers-still-choose-to-shoot-film-over-digital/
https://petapixel.com/2016/08/19/film-photography-making-stunning-comeback/
http://blog.controlspace.org/2010/05/nikon-scan-on-windows-7-and-vista-64.html