New cameras, UMS and Win2K

[one]

Hi,
I'm having difficulties with identifying which cameras support USB Mass Storage nowadays. UMS on an OS lever, i.e., without any proprietary drivers. So you can plug in your camera and immediately access it as a removable drive. I used to have Olympus C5050 and it was grand in this sense. It's not USB2.0, unfortunately, but there was no need to install any rubbish software and Win2K saw it just fine. Then I tried Canon PowerShot S2 and it was nightmare as it asked me to install hundreds Megs of utilities and drivers but I failed to see it as a removable drive anyway. I could only access it as a scanner. I might have missed something, I agree, but the main point is in UMS support. If it's there, you hook it up and enjoy your pics but if it's not, you're screwed. Is it common now or it's just Canon tricks? I remember 4 years ago I had a similar experience with some Canon camera when I needed to transfer the pics to my PC. Now I think of Fuji but as I can't find any meaningful info on this aspect, I thought maybe professionals can help me here? Also, I had this thought that maybe it's due to the fact that Win2K is a bit outdated by now as I saw some notes on driver-less connection to WinXP only. Any info/suggestions/comments would be highly appreciated.
Thanks

[x3ro]

Hi,
I'm having difficulties with identifying which cameras support USB Mass Storage nowadays. UMS on an OS lever, i.e., without any proprietary drivers. So you can plug in your camera and immediately access it as a removable drive. I used to have Olympus C5050 and it was grand in this sense. It's not USB2.0, unfortunately, but there was no need to install any rubbish software and Win2K saw it just fine. Then I tried Canon PowerShot S2 and it was nightmare as it asked me to install hundreds Megs of utilities and drivers but I failed to see it as a removable drive anyway. I could only access it as a scanner. I might have missed something, I agree, but the main point is in UMS support. If it's there, you hook it up and enjoy your pics but if it's not, you're screwed. Is it common now or it's just Canon tricks? I remember 4 years ago I had a similar experience with some Canon camera when I needed to transfer the pics to my PC. Now I think of Fuji but as I can't find any meaningful info on this aspect, I thought maybe professionals can help me here? Also, I had this thought that maybe it's due to the fact that Win2K is a bit outdated by now as I saw some notes on driver-less connection to WinXP only. Any info/suggestions/comments would be highly appreciated.
Thanks

Can't help you with Win2k, as it doesn't do a lot of driver-less connection things, as they're not built in as much as WinXP.. However, my FZ5 was able to do a USM connection in WinXp :)

[one]

Cheers :) Yes, it apparently supports fewer models but it still has a built-in USM support which I know works with some models. As I said, Olympus is OK, also Casio seems fine. By the way, I just don't like XP so I prefer to stay with the tried-and-true Win2K.

[Rhys]

Try using a card reader instead of camera company software. Card readers work on all USB supported O/Ss and are recognised as storge devices.

[one]

Yes, that's exactly what I had to do after my failed attempts to make Canon be nice to me. But I still like to do it in a usual way, hope it's still possible, at least with some models. :)

[lunaris]

What are the USB settings of your Canon? I have an older Nikon and a Panasonic, both allow me to set the USB mode to either USM or PTP. I would think that Canon allows this also. If I remember right, Win2K cannot handle PTP.

[one]

Honestly, I didn't play much with it so I can't tell what setting was in effect. I just used to rely on factory dafaults and in case of Canon they failed to justify my trust. So now it's packed and ready for sale. Sorry but I don't quite know about PTP, it seems something newer. Anyway, now I'm checking Fuji and the main question is if their 5600 and 9500 models support normal, old-fashioned USM. Also, I think of Dimage Z6 but according to their site it does seem to work well without any 3rd-party drivers.