hssutton Thanks for reply. Not a memory problem, as it woks ok in 64 bit with, say 6 or so images open at a time. The reason for using the 32 bit version is that the scanner options enable one to choose details - eg when scanning colour neg, I scan initially at 600 dpi to see what I want, then at 1600 or more later. The WIA interface seems far too crude and TWAIN has worked ok for these scanners in 32 bit and still does. It is just the File/Automate/Batch function crashes if used later. On a laptop it does not do this. In Google there seems to point to a recent CS5 update that causes their wiatwain.ds file in C:/Windows/Twain32 to somehow cause this problem.I will try updating the scanner drivers but did so not long ago.Thanks for your input!j