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

The procedure below was compiled for Windows 7. The only other trick you would need to do to install Nikon Scan under Windoes 8 and 10 is to make Windows 8/10 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 and 10: Normally Windows 8 and 10 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.