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Thank you for the (probable) explanation.  It gave me an idea.  I mounted an image I had from January 2020 soon after I bought this computer.  In its Downloads folder, it had the Epson installer (epson13534.exe) program along with an installer for an earlier version of AutoHotKey  (which presumably generates a different, non- conflicting GUID) .   I  installed the scanner driver from that mounted image.  It seems to have done the trick!   The scanner is working now.  Let’s hope it continues to do so.

I’m surprised that you did not include the free versions of the venerable Acronis TrueImage in the article. Both Seagate and Western Digital provide somewhat crippled versions of the Acronis TrueImage software for use on systems equipped with at least one of their drives. This free version will essentially do all of the things provided by the applications suggested in the article. As almost every system with an external drive, has at least one Western Digital or Seagate/Maxtor drive, this application is free to almost everyone. I’ve used Paragon in the past, but like TrueImage much more.

SOLUTION: After trying lots of tests and install/unistall of security updates, I finally uninstalled IE 8. After doing that, the link (it’s a hyperlink, not a button in IE 7) worked. I then reinstalled IE8 with all the updates and now the button works. I feel silly for not having tried this earlier, but noone else suggested it either.