John, it was on a workstation. But it also seems I was using the wrong version of the SDK, my C5 has 2.0 installed, and my work station was on sdk 3.0 (different problem). I am downloading verision 2.0 sdk now, and hopefully ill get better luck. but to confirm the problem I had with 3.0 was on the workstation. thanks for taking your time to look into this.

Ok, so the 2.0 seems to work out pretty good, thanks for the help. but one a different subject, is it possible to keep the scanner light on, so there is no delay between scans?

The idea is when the batch is completed, my app would then turn the barcode reader off automatically, so almost something like, on form load turn scan on, on form unload turn scan off, if batch completed turn scan off.

Not sure this was the best idea, but what I just did was this, created a thread that keeps on scanning one after the other.

Barcodes barcodes;

while (!StopReading)

{

try

{

bcReader = new BarcodeReader();

bcReader.ReserveDevice();

bcReader.StartScan();

bcReader.WaitForBarcode(5000);

barcodes = bcReader.Barcodes;

foreach (Barcode barcode in barcodes)

{

//ListViewItem lvItem;

string[] barcodeStr = new string[3];

barcodeStr[0] = barcode.Type.ToString();

barcodeStr[1] = barcode.Value;

barcodeStr[2] = barcode.AIMSI;

//MessageBox.Show(barcodeStr[0]);

//MessageBox.Show(barcodeStr[1]);

//this.Text = barcodeStr[1].ToString();

BarcodeReadByTypeValue(barcodeStr);

//MessageBox.Show(barcodeStr[2]);

//lvItem = new ListViewItem(barcodeStr);

//lvBarcodeTypes.Items.Add(lvItem);

}

bcReader.ReleaseDevice();

//if (!StopReading)

// LaunchBarCode();

}

catch (Exception exc)

{

bcReader.ReleaseDevice();

//LaunchBarCode();

}