How to Install Canon Software Utilities Without the CD / DVD

I Lost My Canon Software Utilities Disc. What Do I Do?

B. Rock
B. Rock, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Aug 1, 2011 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

So you just bought a shiny Canon t3i second hand, and it doesn't have the accompanying software utility disc. Or, you formatted your PC and re-installed Windows, only to find that you'd lost the CD / DVD that came with your camera.

No problem. You should be able to just go to the Canon website and download the software, right? It is free, after all, isn't it?

Not so fast. Even though the software is freely available on Canon's website, they've rigged it so that the downloads will only install if the software is already installed on the computer. Or if the installer thinks the software is already installed.

What Software Are We Talking About?

Canon has developed several utilities to work with your Canon camera.

My favorite is the EOS Capture Utility. This lets you hook your camera up to the computer and control it remotely. This is great for taking pictures of products, or if you want to shoot "tethered" - save the images directly to your computer instead of to a memory card.

I don't use ZoomBrowser EX, but it's an organizational / ingestion tool. It helps you import images from your camera to your computer, and then it helps you organize those images on your computer.

Digital Photo Professional and Picture Style Editor round out the core utility set. Both of these programs help you interact with and process RAW files - the full set of image data that your camera records for every image.

So What's the Trick?

You need to edit your Windows registry and convince the installer that the software already exists on your computer. This is simpler than it sounds. Here are four links, each one will explain step-by-step how to get one of these programs up and running.

And that's all there is to it. Now go get your software up and running. You already paid for the camera; you might as well have access to the free stuff that's supposed to come with it.

Published by B. Rock

I'm a recent graduate, a newly wed, and a (no longer first year) teacher. I teach HS Social Studies in a New Jersey city. I graduated from the Rutgers Grad School of Ed in May of 2007. In July '07, I...  View profile

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