PaperPort 12 - Free Upgrade to Version 12.1

I. Introduction

In a previous article (now deprecated), I discussed how to upgrade — at no cost for licensed users — Nuance's PaperPort Version 11 (hereafter, PP11) and PaperPort Version 12 (PP12) to the latest "point" releases, namely, 11.2 and 12.1. At the time of that article's publication, PP11 and PP12 were the two latest versions. Now the latest version is PP14 (yes, Nuance was superstitious and skipped 13), and its latest "point" release is 14.5.

I decided that adding PP14 to the previous article would result in a long, unwieldy article. In addition, a user of one version is not going to be concerned about the other two versions, so I decided to create three separate articles for PP11, PP12, and PP14 users. This is the PP12 one.

The earlier point release of PP12 — 12.0 — is known to have bugs that were fixed in 12.1. The links in the previous article for 12.1 no longer work. This new article provides working links for 12.1, as well as other useful information on upgrading.

Article Update on 18-Apr-2020: Last year, Kofax acquired the Document Imaging Division of Nuance, which included PaperPort. I discuss this in an EE article and video:

Free in-place upgrade of Nuance PaperPort Professional 14.5 to Kofax PaperPort Professional 14.7
Free upgrade of Nuance PaperPort Professional 14.5 to Kofax PaperPort Professional 14.7

As a result of the acquisition, some of the links in this article were broken, as they changed from the Nuance domain to the Kofax domain. This article update fixes those links.

II. Comparison of Standard and Professional Editions

For PP12, there are two consumer editions – Standard and Professional. The feature comparison matrix is available in the Files section of this PaperPort wiki:
http://sites.google.com/site/wikipaperport/files

Here is a direct link to the PDF:
Comparison Matrix of PP12 Standard and PP12 Professional

III. New Links to Downloads

The new links are to a direct download of the upgrades for PP12.1 Standard and Professional, rather than to a Download Request Form, as with the previous links. Beware the size — both are very large:

PP12.1 Standard (269,653,280 bytes)
http://supportcontent.kofax.com/paperport/12/PP12.1STD-BEFIGSD-10111.exe

PP12.1 Professional (361,948,448 bytes)
http://supportcontent.kofax.com/paperport/12/PP12.1PRO-BEFIGSD-10111.exe

IV. Save Scanning Profiles

Before uninstalling your current PP12, save your scanning profiles. Unfortunately, a fresh install of PP12 overwrites your customized scanning profiles file with a standard file. You will lose all of the work that you put into creating your custom scanning profiles.

In XP, the PP12 scanning profiles are located here:
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\PaperPort\12\Profiles.xml

In Vista and W7, the PP12 scanning profiles are located here:
c:\Users\All Users\Nuance\PaperPort\12\Profiles.xml

In W8, they are likely at the same location as Vista and W7, but PP12 is not supported on W8, and I have never installed it in W8, so I'm not sure. W7 is the latest Windows on which PP12 is supported.

Copy the "Profiles.xml" file to a different folder before uninstalling your old PP12 and then copy it back after installing PP12.1.

V. Uninstallation Procedure

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are connected to the Internet during this entire process so the Nuance Activation Server can do its thing, thereby retaining your activation.

For proper installation, you should uninstall all PP12-related products first. This includes PDF Viewer Plus, PP Image Printer, and, of course, PP12 itself (these products require separate uninstalls). You should use the standard Windows manual procedure to uninstall these programs, that is, via Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs in XP and Control Panel>Programs and Features in Vista, W7, W8. If you have PDF Converter, that should also be uninstalled before installing the upgrade (and it requires a separate uninstall).

For further information, here is the Nuance PaperPort knowledge base article regarding uninstallation:
Manual uninstall instructions for PaperPort 12

VI. Remover Tool

Nuance recommends the standard Windows uninstallation procedure, as described in the section above. However, if your uninstallation is problematic, Nuance provides a free Remover Tool that does a more thorough job of removing all traces of a PP12 installation. Here is the link:
PP12 Remover tool

VII. Installation Procedure

IMPORTANT: As with uninstallation, make sure you are connected to the Internet during the installation process so the Nuance Activation Server can do its thing.

After proper manual uninstallation, the next step is to install the upgrade. Each PP12.1 link is to a self-extracting ZIP file (an EXE). There is a check-box that defaults to running "AUTORUN.exe" after unzipping — leave it checked, so that running the downloaded EXE file will result in running the installer.

The PP12.1 installer will install PP12.1, PDF Viewer Plus, and PP Image Printer. You will need to reinstall PDF Converter separately (if you have it and you uninstalled it).

VIII. Flexera's FlexNet Connect Common Software Manager

Nuance uses a Flexera product called FlexNet Connect Common Software Manager to manage updates/upgrades. Many, if not all, Nuance software installations also install this product. I do not like it, as I find it to be an invasive product that does not work well and has some undesirable side-effects.

If you like FlexNet Connect, skip to the next section in this article. If you don't like it, but haven't been able to figure out how to uninstall it, keep reading. It intentionally does not create an uninstaller, so you can't uninstall it from Programs and Features. To uninstall it, you need to download their uninstaller, which is here:
http://support.installshield.com/kb/files/Q112918/SoftwareManagerUninstall.exe

I keep this handy. Every time I see it come onto my system from some software installation, I uninstall it.

IX. Important Warning

Nuance considers PP12 to be an End-of-Life (EOL) product. As such, Nuance provides no guarantee on how long the download links provided in this article will be active. My advice is to download now, before it's too late.

That's it – happy upgrading to PaperPort 12.1! 

If you find this article to be helpful, please click the thumbs-up icon below. This lets me know what is valuable for EE members and provides direction for future articles. Thanks very much! Regards, Joe