Sorry - I'm chuckling - can't help it ;-) Especially #4!

I'd say get XP (it doesn't care WHAT you have plugged, or how many), but I'm not sure you can buy it anymore (think I've only found Vista for sale). Just checking - would a USB Hub work, or is it a matter of ME (when it CAME OUT everyone said it was a useless OS - yet they kept selling it!) recognizing that there's another one "right now" and it freaks out on you?

#5 - I've yet to find a desktop film scanner that handled colors well - even "workable" - without some serious tweaking. The good news is that most often you can save the Settings and recall them for shots taken close to the same way (Velvie film sunset shots - you might be able to save a setting for just those kinda thing).

Does it operate through Photoshop, possibly? Every scanner I've used had some form of plugin for Photoshop - like TWAIN Drivers for Epson - and when you complete a scan it goes immediately intro PS. Anything like that?

In PS, try going to File>Import> - and you should hopefully see the Driver listed there.

Good luck - hope you still have hair left!
-Lew ;-)