will not open exe. files

the format is not a linux one, changing to an user question that's not a bug

From Wikipedia:
"Wine is a free software application that aims to allow [Linux] to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows. "

To do that follow those steps:

1) Go to Applications > Add/Rermove...
2) Change "Show" to "All available applications" and type "Wine" in the search field.
3) Mark the checkbox so it's installed, following the prompts.

Now double clicking on any .exe file will try and execute it as a Windows application. This will not work for all Windows applications.

More about Wine:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)

To get your scanner working try installing the "Sane" package. Go up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager

it asks for your normal user password, not your Super User/Root one. Use either search tool to look for "sane" which should pull in all the dependencies relevant to your scanner (if you have it plugged into your computer during this process). Note that all the programs/applications/codecs and other types of packages that are already installed on your machine will already be marked by a green blob. You can install other packages but right-clicking on them. When you have chosen all the packages you want just click on the "Apply" button.

"Sane" should contain all the codecs for a large number of different scanners but sometimes needs extra drivers. After installing sane try your scanner and see if it works straight-away. If it doesn't then please let us know the make and model of yur scanner and also try looking around the scanner's manufacturers website for "linux driver" for the particular model you have.

Exe files are programs made for Windows. Linux programs (found in Synaptic) are much better than trying to run Windows programs in linux. The Wine project can help you run many Windows programs and games but need a little work to get them working well

http://winehq.org/

Note that you can install Wine from Synaptic and that's usually enough for most programs, it's only some that need to be looked up on the Wine website for special instructions. As an Windows escapee you might also be interested in some of these links

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromWindows

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FreeSoftwareAlternatives

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Security

After you have used Ubuntu or other linux's for a little while you might appreciate the humour in bothering about security in a system that has built in security right from the start and from effectively makes worrying about viruses almost comical. It takes a while to get used to that freedom tho. Note that just as Wndows programs dont really run in linux without a lot of work the same goes for viruses, and they dont have the advantages of being able to use Wine as freely.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Latest information about Kodak scanner drivers for Linux: http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/03/13/184

Oh dear. That's not good news :(

I would love to buy something from one of these types of manufacturers and then return it and demand my money back stating lack of OpenSource drivers as the reason for returning the item. Someone did that with a laptop recently :)))

One of the usual ways around this is to use a dual-boot system
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

or to install a virtual machine and install Windows to that, although i've not heard of success with scanners using that method. Virtualbox seems popular but i'm not sure about vm's at all, i must try one soon. Another way is to wrap the Windows driver with ndiswrapper but again i've no experience of trying this method.

Apols and regards from
Tom :(